Robbie Amell is on fire, literally and figuratively.
In the literal sense, he plays Firestorm on The CW's new superhero show The Flash, a character that sets himself ablaze whenever he feels threatened. Last Tuesday night's episode of The Flash saw the S.T.A.R. Labs team attempt to separate Firestorm back into Ronnie Raymond (Amell), a S.T.A.R. Labs maintenance worker, and Dr. Martin Stein (Victor Garber), a nuclear physicist obsessed with transmutation. Their bodies had been fused together the night the particle accelerator was activated in Central City. However, when the splicing occurred, all we saw was an explosion.
In the metaphorical sense, Amell has a lot more going on these days than just starring on The Flash. He's also in a new high school flick, The Duff, also starring Mae Whitman, Bella Thorne and Ken Jeong, in theaters Feb. 20. With the message that everyone has insecurities being at the core of this movie, it may even warm your heart.
Amell took some time out to speak with T-Lounge over the phone about what we can expect from tonight's episode, Firestorm's costume controversy and the possibility of sharing the screen with cousin Stephen Amell from The CW's Arrow.
What can you tell us about the fate of your character on the show? Where are we going to see Firestorm, Ronnie Raymond and Dr. Martin Stein go from here?
I mean, didn't you see the explosion? I'm dead. I'm not on the show anymore [jokingly]. Uh, no, the very cool thing about last [week]'s episode was it was kind of the Firestorm origin story. And um, now the next episode is titled "Fallout," and it's well titled, because it really is the aftermath and the fallout of separating Martin and Ronnie. You know, Ronnie wants to give his relationship with Caitlin another shot. He's been away from her for a year. Martin wants to go be with his wife. And the two of them have had more than enough of each other, sharing a body for the last year. We quickly find out that they're not as separated as they thought. They may actually have to come back together to fight a big battle on the show.
General Eiling appeared at the end of last week's episode, and he will be going after Firestorm in tonight's episode. What can we expect from that?
One of my favorite scenes is kind of the first time that... it's not really a spoiler. It's the first time that Martin and Ronnie merge together when they both want to. You know, Tom Cavanaugh's character Harrison Wells says the danger with merging again is that they may never be able to split. But if they both accept it, then it won't be one person controlling it. It'll be both people sharing control of the body. We're in control of Firestorm next episode, and we get to do some really cool stuff.
Yeah, so that is something you think could happen in the future?
Yes.
OK, awesome.
I don't know when but some time.
What would you like to see happen in that crossover?
I'd like to see them team up against somebody. As much fun as it would be to fight each other, like the Arrow/Flash crossover episode was, I think it'd be really cool to kind of have me save his ass or have Stephen save my ass. It'd be pretty cool.
So starring on The Flash now and on The Tomorrow People in 2013, those obviously have a lot of special effects and super powers involved, but now your new movie coming out The Duff is quite the departure as it's a movie about regular high school teens. What was it like for you to make that switch to something that was more grounded in real life?
It was fun. You know, the thing about The Flash and The Tomorrow People, even though there's all these special effects and super powers, at its core, you're really trying to ground it as much as possible. That's when people invest as much as they can in it. So we were really doing the same thing with The Duff. It was just a little lighter fare, and we didn't have to worry about it being too out there or too sci-fi, or sci-fi at all. But one of the nice things about The Duff is we were given a lot of freedom with the lines. I would say at least half the movie is improvised. So I would say it just feels really real and natural, which I think a lot of teen comedies are missing these days. So I think that's really something people are going to relate to when they watch it, or at least, you know, feel like it just has that special something that kind of separates it from most teen comedies these days.
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
