Game of Thrones and Outlander veteran Tobias Menzies is reportedly in talks with HBO Max to play villain Sinestro in the upcoming Green Lantern show.
Disney has been killing it with its Marvel TV series on Disney+, and Warner Bros. is playing catch-up with its network of DC heroes. It’s readying a bunch of shows to later come to HBO Max, including Peacemaker and Green Lantern, which will explore the history of the Green Lantern Corps, an intergalactic peace-keeping force stacked with superheroes who can use their will to create anything they can dream up.
We already know that the show will feature Lanterns like Guy Gardner (Finn Wittrock) and Alan Scott, and that it will tell a story that spans decades. But every good superhero (or superhero team, in this case) needs a good supervillain. In the case of the Green Lantern, that villain is often Thaal Sinestro, once an esteemed member of the Green Lantern Corps who is eventually corrupted and forms his own Sinestro Corps, so named because he’s either very vain or not that imaginative.
And now, The Illuminerdi reports that HBO Max is in talks with Tobias Menzies to play the villain. Menzies is a British actor that you’ve probably seen somewhere or another, because he gets around. He played Edmure Tully on Game of Thrones, Prince Phillip in the two most recent seasons of The Crown, and played the duel role of Frank Randall and his ancestor Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall on Outlander.
His Outlander duel role might be of especial use here, because Sinestro is a man divided against himself. The Illuminerdi says the show will focus on Sinestro time at the Green Lantern Corps, back when he was considered a “warrior monk,” “the personification of grace under pressure,” and the “greatest of all Green Lanterns.” The other Lanterns unquestioningly follow his orders, but underneath, “a dark destiny belies his otherwise Zen demeanor.”
So he’s a good guy who’s gonna go bad, something Menzies can surely play well given all his experience.
Of course, we have to qualify that this is a rumor, although The Illuminerdi has been right before — it made a couple of accurate calls about Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon, for instance. It’ll probably be a while before we know the truth of this, but I’m sure DC fans will be happy to hear that there’s movement.
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