Jesse L. Martin says he wasn’t sure about signing up for another TV series, and he definitely wasn’t looking for a show where he could play a detective again. However, he couldn’t say no to The CW’s The Flash. “One of the things when I finished working on Law & Order I said to myself, ‘I don’t know how much more I want to be a detective, particularly on TV.’ But I sat there in New York City with Andrew Kreisberg and Greg Berlanti, and they hate when I describe it this way, but it’s totally how they were, they were like little puppies who needed to pee. They were so excited.
They saw me fit in this world so much more than I did that I really had to take them seriously. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I might be missing out on something if I don’t do this.’ And then suddenly they sent me the script and I was reading it and I’d be fool not to do this. So, luckily it turned out the way it did. It’s so awesome. I’m having such a great time doing it that I feel super lucky,” said Martin at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con.
Martin says he didn’t grow up knowing this comic book world and its mythology, but that actually aids him in helping to get into the character of Detective Joe West.
“Playing Joe West, Joe doesn’t know that stuff either,” explained Martin. “I have to plug my ears sometimes because they get so excited they tell us what’s coming. I just say, ‘I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know,’ because Joe doesn’t know. I’d rather not know that world. If I know too much I’ll start playing things differently and then it won’t be fun or good. So, I like the fact that I just don’t know that much. Like, I walk past that gorilla cage and I was like, ‘I don’t know what that is,’ and I’m glad I don’t know.”
Check out the rest of our interview with Jesse L. Martin for more on what’s happening with his character and with the first season of The Flash:
