The Flash’s Peyton List Calls Lisa Snart “A Lighter Villain” Who’s “Definitely Scary”

The pair are both on board for The Tomorrow People co-creator Greg Berlanti’s The Flash, with Amell in a recurring role as Firestorm while List plays a new villain introduced tonight, the Golden Glider.

Sister to Captain Cold, the Golden Glider brings sexuality and humor to the world of The Flash, something List says she’s felt was missing a bit from some of the previous villains. She says she’s excited to step into the world of the DC Comics adaptation and change the dynamic a little bit with her take on the decades-old character.

List joined ComicBook.com to discuss the role, which she’ll debut tonight on The Flash at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.

Well, I think with this show, they are telling their version of The Flash. They’re telling a particular point of view, starting with Barry not having powers and exploring how he gets them, how he refines his speed, and how they introduce characters. I’m not totally well-versed in the comic book world but as I was watching the show from the fall, when they were introducing the characters, I was thinking, “I wonder if that’s how they did it in the comic book or if this is just their way of telling the story.”

Once I knew I was coming on to the show, I had in mind already that it was going to be how they chose to write her and how they chose to have her point-of-view be. There’s no getting around the fact that she’s Captain Cold’s sister. That’s something that you don’t get away from and something that was really a treat for me because I already knew who Captain Cold was and I’d already seen him on the show so for me I was stoked because I already had that tie-in.

How they wrote her to me was, not as her own person I would say. It was more, she’s a certain personality. She hangs out with a lot of the bad boys. She does use her sexuality as a weapon at times or to get what she wants, but she likes being one of the guys. She’s constantly trying to prove her worth to her brother and that she can hang with the best of them and it’s definitely been a lot of fun in that respect.

She definitely enjoys herself when she’s flirting to try and get what she wants or toying with boys, and when she actually gets her own specialized, personalized weapon, it’s a status marker for her. I think she’s somebody who’s really out to have fun and enjoy herself and get what she wants, whether that’s by evil tactics or mischievous tactics or however that might be. She’s just looking out for herself or for her brother and her brother’s interest.

It totally does. I agree; I was watching the show and some of the evil characters, you just look at them and go, “Why are they doing that? Oh, because they’re evil.” That’s the motivation behind it is that they want to do evil things. With Captain Cold, and with Lisa especially, their motives tend to be a bit more complex.

With Lisa, she’s kind of just doing things that are maybe bad, but she’s doing them because it’s fun and she likes to do it and it makes her laugh. With Cisco especially, he’s the comic relief of the show and he has so many great lines and brings out the humor that when Lisa meets him, you see that in the moment, she is enjoying herself. Whatever her motives may be, she does things tp make herself happy. So it’s very different from the sort of straightforward, evil villain if that makes sense.

Besides Robbie and Greg, is there anybody else from The Tomorrow People that you’d like to draft into service?

Oh, man. Everybody, everybody. I want everybody back. I think that we were so close on The Tomorrow People that I feel like you want any chance to work with anybody again. I was so surprised and stunned to think the fact that I get to sort of work with Robbie again so soon.

I think you always hope for it, that you’ll get to work with somebody again, but it sometimes takes a while but this came around again so quickly that I was thrilled. It’s kind of a special treat.

I think so, yeah. I feel like with the way they’re doing the show and the way they’re storytelling, they leave it a bit open for you to put the personality into it. The basic framework is there and what their motives are and how they go about doing it, but how they live in it is sort of up to you a bit. That can be a blessing but it can also be terrifying because you’re going “Oh, my gosh, what if I screw it up?”

But with her, it did feel very open. You had this framework that asked, “Who is she to you?” Because there’s so much stuff in the comics, you can’t do everything all at once. You have to make some choices and for her, I felt like she was an opportunity to be a lighter villain. Definitely scary, definitely dangerous but in how she goes about it, it almost has a childish joy to it, if that makes any sense. She’s doing these crazy things but it’s like she’s at the playground.

I think that’s something different that we don’t see from many villains. I think it also brings in an interesting dynamic amongst the three of [the Rogues].

Captain Cold is so incredibly methodical that it seems like somebody who’s having fun is an opposite of him — kind of like how they always say that you can’t strategize against The Joker because he does whatever occurs to him to do at any moment.

She does. She definitely has an element of that and I think that serves the whole sibling thing when you have one sibling who’s very much straight down the line of plans and the other one who’s sort of a free spirit.

She doesn’t go off-book completely because we also have Heat Wave who can kind of turn off and start doing his own thing. She does realize her role in the dynamic of the three is keeping the glue there and sticking to the task at hand. She picks her moments of being mischievous and rebelling a bit, but at the end of the day, she really does want her brother’s approval and want to be a valued asset of his Rogues. She always has that in mind, but she can’t help  herself and I think that’s one aspect of her that you just love, is that she can be just indulging herself and having fun and then get right back to the task.

I always like to ask guest stars: if you were to come back, is there somebody you didn’t get to perform with this time around that you’d like to share the screen with?

I think anyone else on the cast. They are very varied [in their characters’ tones] and of course, with how the story has been unfolding with Wells and everything, you can’t help but be fascinated by what would happen if they matched up.

Of course, the cast is very talented so you can’t help but want to work with any of them. You know that any dynamic you’d have would be different from character to character. I think you’d kind of just be interested in what would happen if they ran into Joe West or if they ran into Harrison Wells.

Would they be immediate enemies? Would they team up? Would would happen? I think that’s the beauty of this world, is it leaves everything open for what you want to happen.