The Arrowverse superheroes and a whole host of other DC characters are about to meet their biggest foe yet, the evil Anti-Monitor, described by actor LaMonica Garrett as "evil incarnate." The actor, who will already be familiar to fans of the Arrowverse as The Monitor, will take on a dual role in Crisis on Infinite Earths as he plays both his regular character and his "polar opposite, mirror image" on The CW event.
What this means for fans is that the protector of the matter universes and the anti-matter universe will be facing off against each other, with a little help from Arrow, two versions of The Flash, Batwoman, Supergirl, the Legends of Tomorrow, two Supermans, a Bruce Wayne, a Bird of Prey, Stargirl, Black Lightning, Jonah Hex and more. What it meant for Garrett, however, is a lot of time in the make-up chair.
"It took a little over two hours," the Designated Survivor actor said about the make-up, "it started out as three hours and ended up at two hours and 10 minutes." This meant a very demanding shoot for the actor across the five episodes.
"It's challenging physically and mentally," he said, "showing up on limited sleep, sitting in the chair for maybe one or two hours just trying to get in the headspace of the Anti-Monitor, then at midday you go and sit in the chair for another hour and 20 minutes and try to get into the headspace of The Monitor.
"What I did during the time sat in the chair was check back in and recalibrate and just work on the different energy while I was transforming into him, and that helped me through the days."
All of this, however, is for the benefit of telling the biggest story that the CW shows have ever told, and one that will give us our first glimpse of what the Arrowverse will look like without Arrow itself, which is due to air its final episode on January 28, 2020—though in the last episode of that show The Monitor turned up to tell Oliver (played by Stephen Amell) that he would die in order to save the multiverse.
According to Garrett, Crisis will be a "reset" of sorts of the shows. He said: "Since the last crossover, there's been destruction of worlds and Earths and people, destruction of the same magnitude that in the comic books in 1985 [when Crisis was released] reset the entire DC universe. With Arrow being the show that launched all these other shows, Crisis right now is a reset that sets a new direction for what's to come."
Asked what else fans can expect, he said: "All the shows have their different tone and I think they did a great job of mixing the energy of each show and matching the overall tone, which is dark. There's devastation, there's worlds being destroyed, but The Flash has always had a little bit of humor and been more quick-witted, so they bring that in. Legends of Tomorrow brings its tone in too, but overall, it's a dark story with a lot of destruction and death.
Crisis on Infinite Earths starts on Sunday, December 8
