In the final moments of the first episode of “Lanterns,” Hal Jordan is shown in an unexpected light.
After a 10-year time jump from the main events in Sunday’s premiere, the veteran Green Lantern played by Kyle Chandler is sitting alone in the snowy stands of a rural high school football field — dead. And the ring that gives him powers is nowhere in sight.
“That might have been another reason why I said, ‘I want to do this,’” Chandler says during a recent interview. “That sets into the tone of the show.”
The Jordan that the audience gets to know is a bit surly and self-centered. A former military test pilot turned space cop, Jordan knows he’s good at his job and has grown used to doing things his way. He has no problem expressing his displeasure at being inconvenienced by his unwanted trainee or earthbound law enforcement officers.
“I love the old grouchy characters,” Chandler says. “They always try to do bad but it always falls on top of them. Then, when they do good, it’s heartwarming. You get to play all these different colors inside of these guys.”
Created by Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King, “Lanterns” follows Jordan and new recruit John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), whom he has been assigned to train. Considering new Green Lanterns are usually only called up when a current one dies, Jordan isn’t really keen on having to teach his “backup.”
The HBO Max series is based on DC comic book characters and is set within the same universe as films like “Superman” and “Supergirl” and the TV series “Peacemaker.” But don’t worry, familiarity with the comics or other franchise installments are not required.
Mundy says he and his cohorts envisioned their Jordan as a Chuck Yeager type — someone who is cool and confident with the skills to back it up — and that Chandler’s was a name that had come up immediately.
“Kyle has a really, really good sense of himself, in the best way,” says Mundy, who’d previously worked with the actor on the series “Bloodline.” “Kyle, just as a person, is so likable and it’s real. [So] it allows you to push the character to be even more of a jerk to John because you know it’s going to fall back on, ‘Oh yeah, it’s Kyle doing it.’ So it can land a little bit softer, and people can tolerate a little bit more.”
Likable and charming are among the immediate impressions Chandler makes during a morning interview in West Hollywood earlier this month. He notes at the start that he’s unsure if he has enough to talk about for the full duration we’re scheduled for as if he’s not a veteran actor with an arsenal of anecdotes and self-deprecating quips. (“I don’t think my humor is going to go over very well in print,” he jokes. “It doesn’t go over very well anyway.”)
Among Chandler’s signature roles is the dedicated and dependable coach Eric Taylor on “Friday Night Lights” — a character whose full-hearted approach to mentorship is quite different from Jordan’s. His time on the show and working with executive producer Peter Berg “changed my whole way of looking at what acting was and is,” he says. Chandler won an Emmy for his work on the show in 2011.
“I think the thing that people don’t quite understand because he makes it all look so easy is how technically proficient he is, and how many choices he’s making all the time,” Mundy says. “He’s very, very gifted on a granular level as an actor.”
Chandler’s the type of actor who still appreciates being sent physical copies of scripts. He makes sure to mention people by name if they come up in a story — including his manager Cynthia Pett, agent Leslie Siebert, “Lanterns” costume designer Cynthia Ann Summers and fellow actor and friend Trent Bross. He credits the crew just as much as the cast for the care and passion they brought to the show and makes sure to clarify the difficulty of the work that was done while highlighting the fun he had on the production.
He’ll also casually ask questions to HBO and DC reps in the room mid-interview that can’t be repeated here because of the implications to the broader franchise.
Chandler says one of the things that stood out to him the first time he read the script for “Lanterns” was the writing.
“I loved the fact that there was humor, and self-deprecating humor and a grouchy character,” says Chandler. “I could see myself in this role. … Did I know anything about Green Lantern? I did not.”
Green Lanterns are intergalactic heroes who use a special ring to harness their imagination and willpower to manifest objects, manipulate energy and fly, as we see Jordan do, to Stewart’s chagrin.
Chandler might not have known much about Lanterns, but he does understand the power of imagination. While growing up in rural Georgia, the characters and stories he encountered while turning the UHF dial on the television were both a refuge and fuel for his own imagination as he played out in the woods by his home. It eventually inspired him to pursue a career in acting and opportunities in Hollywood.
Coincidentally, the day Chandler came out to L.A. to start work on “Lanterns” was on the anniversary of the day he first left his home to chase his acting dreams — Jan. 15, 1989.
The actor describes Jordan as a “talker” and “bulls—er” who’s “got far more on his mind than what he’s talking about.”
“He’s an older fellow who’s afraid of losing his power and his mortality is coming about and his career is coming to a possible [end],” Chandler says. So when the “young upstart” Stewart comes around, “my character’s thought is, ‘I’m far wiser, I’m far smarter, I’m the only one who’s ever done this before. Don’t forget that kid.’ ”
Jordan and Stewart may not have many kind words to say about each other — especially in the 2016 era of the show — but Chandler and Pierre more than make up for it.
“I’d never worked with Aaron before … but once we’re acting, it gets very intimate,” Chandler says. “Once we started playing with each other, and you’re still trying to figure out who your character is, working through the other character. It’s such an intimate piece with two people.”
Pierre says this process was a “joyful,” “nourishing” and “collaborative experience.”
“It’s not a given, nor is it an obligation or mandatory to develop a friendship with individuals that you collaborate with,” says Pierre. “And I was blessed with the gift of … developing a genuine, sincere friendship with Kyle that exists outside of the context of work.”
As much as Chandler is game to talk about his work on “Lanterns” — including his delight that the show shot on the same Warner Bros. soundstage as his first TV series, “Homefront,” did in the 1990s, being nervous about the first formal table read with the rest of the cast and what it was like having his Green Lantern suit made — his eyes shine a bit brighter when he mentions his family.
This includes the work he and his wife Kathryn do through Patriots’ Hall of Dripping Springs, a sprawling resource center for veterans and their families in their Texas community that they became involved with during the pandemic.
“It’s a place to help veterans work through the VA, to help veterans job source, to help veterans come together for Taco Tuesdays and breakfasts and dinners,” Chandler says. “We’ve had so many supporters and people who have donated to help this out … and it’s been an incredible experience. Very, very fulfilling.”
Pierre likens Jordan to a massive puzzle that Stewart is trying to piece together without any instructions or even a reference. Part of Stewart’s journey over the course of the show is coming to understand that Jordan is an infinite puzzle and it’s OK if he doesn’t understand every nuance and detail.
“What he can do is understand who this individual is fundamentally at their core,” Pierre says. “He knows that at his core, there is a mutual love and respect. He could trust Hal with his life, and Hal could trust John with his. At a certain point, John just kind of sets it free.”
The Stewart who is taken to see Jordan in the final moments of the first episode is closer to the end of that journey.
“We had already captured so much of the tension between John and Hal that I was curious what I was going to feel as John seeing Hal in the stands frozen to death,” says Pierre of that 2026 scene that was filmed during a cold night-shoot. “I felt really emotional on the day and I totally just allowed that to present itself on camera. John will deal with that how he deals with it, but I felt this well of [emotion] come all the way up into my throat … and I had to navigate that as John.”
And while audiences will have to wait for the mysteries around Jordan’s death and the happenings in Rushville, Neb., to be resolved in the show’s seven remaining episodes, one thing is certain: No matter how much Jordan might come to appreciate Stewart in that time, he’s probably not going to admit it out loud.
“I think that one of the goals of the arc for these two guys is that they really don’t like each other at the beginning,” says Chandler. “At the end … you realize [it’s] a really wonderful friendship that occurred. … He’s a friend. I’m not gonna tell him that, but he’s a friend, and I’d do anything for him.”
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