IN THE (WET) FLESH
Eclipso’s longawaited entrance on ‘DC Stargirl’
THE big bad villain of“DC’s Stargirl” has finally arrived. Thanks to an epic battle between the Justice Society of America and the new Young Injustice Society of America, Eclipso (Nick Tarabay) has broken free of the Black Diamond, and is ready to wreak havoc on Blue Valley.
“This is just the beginning of Eclipso,” Tarabay said. “There’s way more to him.”
In a matter of minutes after emerging in Tuesday night’s episode, Eclipso killed poor Isaac Bowin (Max Frantz), sucked Cindy Burman (Meg DeLacy) into a dark portal of goo, broke The Shade’s (Jonathan Cake) powers and seemingly shut down Courtney’s (Brec Bassinger) cosmic staff.
And though the staff hurt him, he’s transformed back into a small little boy, who walks through Blue Valley cackling at the end of the episode. Yikes.
To find out more, we chatted with Tarabay about getting the role and his approach to the iconic DC Comics villain.
Since you’ve already played a villain on “Arrow,” did you have any hesitance in jumping back in and playing yet another DC comics-based villain?
None at all. I actually also felt, with Captain Boomerang [on “Arrow”] ... could have been a bigger role and was supposed to be a bigger role, but then they did the movie so that conflicted with the TV show. And so, no, that was not even an issue. Every character has his own life, has his own world, has his own pulse. So I don’t look at it that way. It’s not like I had something against DC where I was like “No, I don’t want to work for them.” DC is a comic book [company] that I absolutely love. I grew up watching “Superman” and “Batman” and all this stuff. I’m a big fan. So never an issue.
For the first five episodes Eclipso has been this offscreen voice. And then finally we get to see him in person. What was first for you? The voice, the physicality?
I did not actually record the voice until after I filmed everything. So when I actually landed in Atlanta and they had to do a test shoot with me, as far as under the costume, I was already prepping all of this stuff. So I started with physicality right away. But for me, the voice is part of the physicality.
In his first scene, he’s very shiny and wet. Were there different levels of sliminess of the mask that they played with? It’s almost like he was just born.
Depending on where we add the lighting, and the environment that we’re in … Sometimes we have to put a little bit more, sometimes you have to put a little bit less. It’s pretty much giving birth to something because he’s never been outside of the diamond and he’s never been in a live-action before. So this is the first time. Earth will never be the same because evil just gave birth to this thing.
What was it like going up against Jonathan Cake as The Shade?
It was a great. I wish I would have played with him more, but it was a big, big scene. It took us almost two days just to shoot that scene. I still haven’t seen the episode, so I hope it came out right.
Eclipso versus Cindy was pretty brutal. What was filming that like?
Well, Cindy was really great because you get to know where Eclipso is at, where his mind is at, and what his goals are. Because all along, if you notice, I think that there were a couple of episodes before when she tells him, “I’m the boss, I tell you what to do, blah, blah, blah.” And he was like, “Of course, I’m here to help you.” And all that. And then you see where his alliance stands, where his mind is ... He is his truly his own man. Cindy was a great bridge to Eclipso.