DC’s Legends of Tomorrow Star Caity Lotz Explains Why She Wanted to Direct for The Flash

This week’s episode of The Flash is an Arrowverse crossover of sorts, at least behind the camera. DC’s Legends of Tomorrow star Caity Lotz directs this week’s “The Curious Case of Bartholomew Allen” and while it’s not her first time serving as director within The CW’s shared DC universe — she’s directed a handful of Legends episodes, including the series’ milestone 100th — it is her first time directing The Flash. According to Lotz, coming to the series to direct allowed her to get out of her comfort zone and do something a little different.

“I wanted to get out of my comfort zone,” Lotz told ComicBook.com. “It’s like with Legends, I know everybody, everybody knows me and I wanted to see what it was like going somewhere where everyone didn’t have to be nice to me. But of course everybody was. It was a gem. But mostly I just… it’s different, doing it on your own show versus somewhere else. And also their show is different than ours. Style is different and how they operate. And it’s a good challenge. I actually found it, after doing the 100th episode of Legends, I was like ‘this is so lovely and manageable,’”

Even with The Flash being a very different show than DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, Lotz said that it was still familiar in a lot of ways. She also explained that she had the benefit of already knowing the world and the characters as well because of the Arrowverse connections, something that made things easier.

“It was familiar in the sense of I know people’s storylines, I know the world and the characters already so that made everything a lot easier,” Lotz said. “And I mean, Flash just logistically I didn’t shoot over 11 hours ever. So, we were always done in less than 10 hours, 11-hour camera day. Some days were not even like nine hours and on Legends where we go regularly to like 13 hours. So, I really appreciated that about The Flash that it’s a bit more manageable and I think because when we would go out and we’re shooting on a rooftop, but instead of shooting five vignette fight scenes and special effects, you just have one person and it’s as soon as Flash takes off it’s I’m shooting plates, plate footage for them to put in there.”

As for the actual finished episode, Lotz teases that it’s a fun one and that series star Grant Gustin knocks it out of the park.

“It was a fun episode,” she said. “It was a really fun one. Grant was getting to really show off all of his comedic chop scenes, out of the park.”

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW. “The Curious Case of Bartholomew Allen” airs tonight, May 25th.