Emily Kinney Talks The Flash, The Walking Dead and More

Kinney, who played kind-hearted Beth Greene for four years and change on AMC’s The Walking Dead, will now play a bitter, deranged villain who goes by the name of the Bug-Eyed Bandit.

Kinney joined ComicBook.com for a conversation about The Flash.

You’re playing a villain, and you’re best known for a character who was very sweet and innocent. Was that a conscious choice, to say “Hey, look, I can do this?”

I don’t know if there was any sort of “I want to prove to you.” I just thought it sounded really fun. When the opportunity came up to work on The Flash, I thought, “Whoa, that’s a really cool show.” He never watched The Walking Dead, but when I told him I was going to work on The Flash, he was like, “That’s my favorite show!” And the characters seemed really cool.

I will say, there was something where I said to myself, “It will be fun to play the bad guy.” Beth was so fun to play and she was so sweet and had such a good heart and I loved playing her, but I think in all of us, we do have times where we get angry or we hold a grudge and it’s fun to channel that into a character. For me, it was more that this just sounded fun.

Do you get to go full-crazy evil, or are you a bit more sympathetic?

I think I’m a little more out there. You do get to find out, there’s a reason behind her isolation and quest to wreak havoc. You definitely learn a little bit more about her, but she’s pretty bad, she’s pretty evil [laughs].

The Bug-Eyed Bandit is typically an Atom villain. Did you get to play off of Brandon Routh?

Most of the stuff I did was actually by myself. So I met him but I didn’t do a lot of scenes or anything with him. She’s sort of isolated in her little beehive, doing things and wreaking havoc. I think that sort of adds to her character of being this computer-hacking villain, you know? The fact that she’s sort of in her own little world.

I didn’t get to interact with him too much, but one thing that is cool is, obviously when I looked up the Bug-Eyed Bandit, I’m very different from what that is in the comic books, so it sort of allowed freedom to create a new character.

You’re kind of the opposite of Felicity in some ways…

Yeah!

So if you got a call to come over to Arrow next season, say, would you be on board for that?

Probably. I mean, I had a really nice time and it’s the same group of people, same creators, even some of the same actors and stuff go back and forth. I had a really nice time working on this show and being in Vancouver, so you never know.

Beth was a big X-factor on The Walking Dead because her character didn’t exist in the comics. How’s that different from playing a character like this who does exist, but is wildly different? Did you do any additional preparation or were you still just focused on blazing your own trail?

It’s a little of both, honestly. I obviously looked up the character and did a little bit of research, but I quickly realized that they cast me and asked me to do this, and I don’t look anything like the Bug-Eyed Bandit from the comics. It’s written a certain way, so I kind of quickly put that aside and thought, “Okay, now let’s create a new character.” That’s obviously the inspiration but I look a certain way and what they come up with for costumes is obviously going to influence the character a lot, and how she talks. Those are huge things.

So I let the script and the costume and those things influence the character more.

Do you have any idea whether your character is connected in any way to H.I.V.E.?

Ohh…! I don’t think so. Not that I’ve been told. 

You know, I kind of use the script in front of me as my outline and all the information that I have. I don’t think so, but…

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