Yahoo Lifestyle Grant Gustin Shares His Honest First Reaction to The Flash’s Musical Episode ‘Duet’
Grant Gustin felt that, like speedster Barry Allen, The Flash‘s musical episode arrived on the scene a bit quickly.
The seventh episode of The Flash‘s third season, “Duet” aired March 21, 2017, and featured crossover appearances by Supergirl‘s Melissa Benoist and Jeremy Jordan, Arrow‘s John Barrowman and Legends of Tomorrow‘s Victor Garber. The Flash‘s Jesse L. Martin and Carlos Valdes also sang in the episode, as did Glee grad Darren Criss, guesting as the villainous Music Meister.
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The premise: The Music Meister sends The Flash and Supergirl to a world where life is a musical and the only way to escape is to sing and dance.
In a series of TVLine polls, readers gave “Moon River” (performed by Benoist), “Put a Little Love in Your Heart” (Valdes, Criss, Jordan and Barrowman) and “More I Cannot Wish You” (Martin, Barrowman and Garber) average grades of “A-,” while “Super Friend” (Gustin and Benoist ) netted a “B+” and “Runnin’ Home to You” (Gustin) scored an “A.”
“Going into it, I was like, ‘Why are we doing this? Like, why are we doing this?'” recalls Gustin in the new, Feb. 11 episode of Smallville alum Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast (watch full video below).
But Gustin, even as No. 1 on the call sheet, did not ask that the Arrowverse press pause on the ambitious idea.
“I never really fought much of anything on the show, I never was like, ‘I don’t want to do to this,'” he shares on the podcast. Outside of suggesting the occasional dialogue tweak, “I never considered myself a writer, I never was pitching a different storyline. So yeah, when I saw that we were doing a musical, I was like, ‘Feels early,'” coming as it did in Season 3. “That was one of my first thoughts.”
Gustin says that, given the amount of musically inclined talent living in the Arrowverse, “That’s why we did it. It was, like, begging to be done.” Martin, Valdes, Jordan, Garber, Gustin and Benoist all had done or would do Broadway, while Gustin, Benoist and Criss had all been on Glee.
Meanwhile, Gustin notes, The Flash‘s Tom Cavanagh and Supergirl‘s Chris Wood — both of whom have Broadway experience — appeared in “Duet” but didn’t get to sing a note.
“It was ridiculous,” Gustin says of the talent on hand. And while he has not rewatched the episode since — out of fear of finding nits to pick amidst a enjoyable experience — “people love that episode,” he reports.
“The crossovers tended to be the hardest, most miserable experiences at times, but other times the most fun experiences,” he notes. “[‘Duet’] was both; it was one of the more memorable, fun episodes.”
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