‘Legends Of Tomorrow’: EP Phil Klemmer On Rip’s Return, The Struggle For Mick Rory’s Soul

They’re back! The “Legends of
Tomorrow” are heading off on a new time travel adventure as they move to
Tuesday nights on The CW.

The return of the show will also
see the return of Rip Hunter, Arthur Darvill’s character, who was lost to
history throughout the first half of Season 2. He briefly appeared in a final
scene at the end of 2016 with longer hair, an American accent, and in a
director’s chair.

Executive Producer Phil Klemmer
told AccessHollywood.com more about Rip’s return, and how different he’ll be when the “Legends”
and Legion of Doom encounter him. And, he addressed Mick Rory’s (Dominic
Purcell) recent Leonard Snart (Wentworth Miller) visions and what they could
mean for the character.

Brandon-Routh-as-Ray-PalmerAtom-Caity-Lotz-as-Sara-LanceWhite-Canary-Nick-Zano-as-Nate-HeywoodSteel-Franz-Drameh-as-Jefferson-Jax-Jackson-and-Maisie-Richardson-Sellers-as-Amaya-JiweVixen-in-Legends-of-Tomorrow
(The CW)

PHOTOS: ‘DC’s Legends Of Tomorrow’: More Scenes From Season 2

AccessHollywood.com: Rip Hunter is finally
back. He was working in the film  industry. Although, he didn’t seem to be
working on a big budget feature.
Phil Klemmer:
No, it’s not a big budget. It’s more of the student film
variety.

Access: He’s a graduate student I
understand. Was Mr. Darvill working on another project and he wasn’t available
to you or did you want to create some mystery?
Phil: I would say that it was a confluence
of both. He does have other obligations, but at the same time, we wanted to
give him a chance to play a totally new character. And we also wanted a chance
to see who our Legends were without somebody telling them what to do or what
the right thing to do is. … We just felt sorry for Rip Hunter – that he was
constantly having to correct these people and tell them how incompetent and how
irresponsible they were because … [it’s] no fun to be like a chaperone on a
field trip of over-caffeinated middle schoolers. So our solution to that was
to basically turn Rip into the equivalent of an over-caffeinated middle
schooler, to make him one of the gen pop. He’s no longer an authority figure.
In fact, he’s kind of the least heroic of our characters when we meet him, not
that directing movies isn’t important, but he’s certainly doesn’t remember
anything about being a Time Master, he doesn’t remember anything about the
Spear of Destiny. All he wants is to make his student film.

WATCH: ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’ Stars Tease Season 1

Access: Can we expect Rip to not have his
memory for the next few episodes at least?
Phil:
It’s
complicated. I mean, yeah, he does not have his memories. Obviously we’re not
going to leave him without his memories forever, but there’s a real severe
complication. Having them restored is not a gentle or a process that doesn’t
have hiccups. And remember, we’re not the only people after Rip. The Legion is
looking for the Spear of Destiny and Rip obviously was somehow tied up in the
disappearance of the Spear so he’s in the crosshairs too. And when our team
comes and says, ‘Hey Rip, we’re here to rescue you,’ he trusts them exactly as
much as he trusts the Legion of Doom. It’s like an amnesia story where we’re
like, ‘No, we’re the good guys!’ and obviously the Legion can be like, ‘Hey,
we’re the good guys too.’ But there will be complications because he will be in
our hands, he will be in their hands, and eventually, he will have to decide
which of our teams to believe. And at a certain point, there’s going to be more
than one version of Rip Hunter this season.

Access: I’m looking forward to seeing
how Damien [Darhk] reacts to film school Rip because Damien just does not
suffer fools gladly. He just gets very irritated with people very easily.
Phil:
Yeah. We’ll do an episode from the point of view of the Legion and it’s really
fun to watch Darhk sort of deal with this like befuddled film student version
of Rip because he’s hopelessly freaked out and neurotic and he’s making these
movies about what he thinks are like actual villains, and when he meets a real
life villain, it sorts of puts his imagination into context.

Access: This episode, we can see Mick
Rory in a chair with Stein being attentive [in a promo pic]. Does he have a medical problem?
Phil: Medical,
mental – I mean we know that Mick Rory is not right in the head. I guess the
big question is we’ve seen Snart and it’s like is he seeing Snart? Is Snart
real? Is Snart a ghost? Is this some time traveling version or a time figment?
But regardless, Mick Rory is a man who having burned his own family alive in
their house as a child, he’s got some real psychological issues that he needs
to deal with. And yeah, I think, I don’t think Stein, for all his brilliance, is
really going to be able to help him.

Access: I spoke with Wentworth Miller
the other day at TCAs and he said he was [heading up to Vancouver to film more episodes]. Obviously [his character] is joining the Legion of
Doom. Can you give us any sort of hints at the version of Leonard Snart the
Legion is going to be recruiting and then, to piggy back off that, how is that
going to impact Sara and Mick?

Phil: Well
it’s not the ideal version of him. I don’t think we should count on him
exploding himself for the sake of our team any time soon. Yeah, I mean, it’s —
for Sara they did have a bit of a moment there at the Vanishing point, but I
think Sara’s kind of moved past it. She’s sort of really stepped up in Rip’s
absence and become the sort of the de facto captain of this team. For her, her
real struggle is about Damien Darhk and whether she tries to kill him in order
to prevent her sister from dying in the future. That’s her season-long struggle.
… Rory has only ever trusted one person in his life, and even if it’s not the
version of Snart that he remembers, it still beats all of our Legends combined.
… The way I describe it is our Legion and our Legends are like perfectly
matched and then Mick Rory, if you imagine it like a scale, he’s sort of
standing there right on the balance. … Basically, this whole season is a battle
for like Mick Rory’s soul and I don’t think we’ve ever really fully established
whether he belongs on our team or whether he’d be better off with the Legion. I
think in his heart he’d rather be back with Leonard Snart, but as we know, that
version of Snart has to die and so it really is a question of whether his
loyalty to the only person he’s ever given two craps about – whether that’s
greater than his newfound loyalty for our team because Rory doesn’t give a crap
about history. He’s a simple man and it’s really about who’s got his back and
yeah, really interesting stuff for him to play.

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“DC’s Legends of
Tomorrow” airs Tuesday at 9/8c on The CW, after “The Flash.”

Jolie Lash

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