The Flash: Teddy Sears Reacts to Movie Cameo Confusion
No, Teddy Sears -- the actor who played Zoom on The CW's The Flash -- did not appear in The Flash movie as Golden Age Flash Jay Garrick. That...just kinda looks like him. After a day of fans debating the issue on social media, the actor spoke with TVLine to clarify that he absolutely, 100%, is not in the movie. The cameo in question comes during a scene of multiversal exploration, when a black-and-white world sees a speedster that looks quite a bit like Sears, and is wearing a version of Jay Garrick's costume strikingly similar to the one he wore at the start of The Flash's second season.
On the TV series, Sears first presented himself as Jay Garrick -- The Flash of Earth-2 -- in order to ingratiate himself to Team Flash before revealing that he was, in fact, the villainous Hunter Zolomon, and that he had the real Jay Garrick (Earth-2's doppelganger of Henry Allen, played by John Wesley Shipp) hidden away in custody. Sears reprised the role of Zoom (opposite Shipp's Jay Garrick) in the series finale of The Flash last month.
"I mean… that looks like my likeness," Sears admitted to TVLine. "People kept telling me that I was in the new Flash movie....I mean, I'm sleep-deprived with a newborn at home, so my memory is a little foggy. But I'm pretty sure I would have remembered shooting a major DC Studios film."
TVLine confirmed with sources at Warner Bros. and Warner Bros. Television that the footage was not Sears, but rather a "generic Golden Age Flash representation played no actor of note," which...seems harsh.
A prior TVLine story had left off the "actor of no note" bit, and the "generic Golden Age Flash representation" led some fans to speculate that the movie's Jay Garrick might have been an AI construct, in which case Sears could have been part of the data set. That does not appear to be the case. If the past is any indication, it's likely that by the time the movie comes to Blu-ray and DVD, the actor's identity will be public.
The lack of Sears firmly excludes any presence of DC's TV multiverse in the film, since both Grant Gustin and John Wesley Shipp were notably absent from the movie's many cameos. The Flash star Ezra Miller previously appeared in The CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths TV event, cementing the DC film universe as part of the multiverse that the "Arrowverse" series appeared in. Crisis on Infinite Earths also tied into Superman Returns (itself a sequel to Christopher Reeve's Superman movies), the 1966 Batman show, the 1988 Batman movie, and TV series ranging from Smallville and Birds of Prey to Titans and Swamp Thing.
The Flash speeds into theaters on June 16th, promising to reshape the DC Multiverse with the help of familiar faces and brand-new heroes. Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) ventures to the past to change history, resulting in massive repercussions for the future. Forced to team up with another version of Barry, the mysterious Kryptonian known as Supergirl (Sasha Calle), and the iconic Batman (Michael Keaton), the Scarlet Speedster is forced to reckon with his mistakes and save a doomed reality. The Flash is directed by Andy Muschietti, written by Christina Hodson from a story by Joby Harold, and produced by Barbara Muschietti.