The third season of popular DC animated series Harley Quinn on HBO Max features a surprising cameo from the Arrowverse. Episode 5 sees Harley (Kayley Cuoco) and her girlfriend Poison Ivy (Lake Bell) take a trip to New Orleans, where they encounter none other than John Constantine (Matt Ryan).
Constantine is a DC comics character who was created by Alan Moore, among others, and made his debut in Swamp Thing before starring in his own successful run of comics called Hellblazer. Keanu Reeves played him in a brilliant film released in 2005, which co-starred Tilda Swinton as Gabriel.
Jenna Colman plays Johanna Constantine, another version of the character, in new Netflix series The Sandman, based on Neil Gaiman’s comic book series. Welsh actor Matt Ryan has played the character more than any other though. The Constantine TV series which began in 2014 unfortunately only ran for 13 episodes, but he has played the character in several different Arrowverse shows, including Legends of Tomorrow and Crisis on Infinite Earths.
“What I love playing about John Constantine is the fact that he’s a really dark soul, but the way that he handles his humour and his wit, he can go from being really serious to really flippant like that, and it’s a really fun thing to play, and as an actor, he’s a real three-dimensional character,” Ryan explained to ComicBook.com back in June.
“I feel so blessed, really, being able to play John Constantine throughout all these different mediums, and for so long,” Ryan added. “It’s been years since I first started playing this character, and I’m still here, and I think that is partly down to the fans’ acceptance of me. The character is such an iconic role, and the first thing you want to do is try to be true to those original comics, which I’ve fallen in love with.”
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