Linda Park may be a tough sports reporter on "The Flash," but she's going to need every ounce of courage on Tuesday night.
Malese Jow's character is about to look The CW superhero drama's new supervillain in the eyes – Earth 2's Zoom.
Central City Picture News' Linda will pretend to be her Earth 2 doppelganger – Dr. Light – in an attempt to lure Zoom over to Earth 1 for capture by Team Flash. The whole team's involved in the all-new episode, airing at 8/7c, and Malese hopped on the phone to tell Access Hollywood all about it.
AccessHollywood.com: Tell me what it was like to go back up to 'The Flash' for Season 2? This has to be a really fun project to be a part of.
Malese Jow: This show is a hit and for good reason. There are just amazing people attached and the energy is great, the writing is amazing, so I was so excited to learn that I was not only coming back, but coming back as two characters -- two iconic comic book characters. It's such an honor and very exciting. I was actually kept in the dark for a long time about what they were actually going to do with me, so the Dr. Light thing was very last minute, it was quite the whirlwind, but such an honor.
Access: You used the phrase 'kept in the dark,' so I have to ask, when were you brought into the light, so to speak, about the fact that you'd get to play a metahuman from Earth 2?
Malese: At the end of my stint as Linda on Season 1, Andrew [Kreisberg, the show's EP] and everyone was like, 'Yeah, we definitely want you back for Season 2, we absolutely love you and I was like, 'OK, sure.' And… this past summertime, they had me pinned for a few episodes and they called me in for a wardrobe fitting, which I thought would be for Linda and we'd try on cute pencil skirts and office clothes, but when I get there, they proceeded to measure every single inch of my body, I was like, 'Oh, wow, is this some new process? Do I not have to try on clothes any more?' It wasn't until a week or two later that I finally got the call from Andrew Kreisberg, and he's like, 'Since your costume is being made, I guess we should tell you what's going on and what we have in store,' and he proceeds to me about Dr. Light and Earth 2 and how they were going to kind of mold these two characters together and my jaw was just on the floor. It was one of the coolest phone calls that I've gotten in my career thus far.
Access: A lot of interesting stuff happened in the last episode – Linda saw her doppelganger, she saw her beloved boss and mentor killed in front of her – where's her head at as we head into the next episode?
Malese: It went from like 0-100 for Linda. She was just kind of living her life and then one day, of course, this world takes over that she had no idea about and she kind of gets thrust into Team Flash. Iris kind of sees potential in how they can make it work and recruits her and craziness ensues. It was so fun to have scenes finally with Jesse [L. Martin], Tom [Cavanagh], Carlos [Valdes], Danielle [Panabaker] – they're such cool, fun people to work with. So we get to see a quirky, fun training montage, but then, on the other hand we get to see some insane stunts, lots of action. Linda comes face-to-face with Zoom, our supervillain for the season, so it was definitely a thriller and very exciting.
Access: If I'm not mistaken, Linda doesn't know Barry's secret before this episode, right?
Malese: Not at this point, and to be honest, it's really not at the top of her priority list to find out. She's just kind of recruited and she steps up to the plate and wants to do whatever she can to help Team Flash capture Zoom.
Access: Is this an opportunity for her to maybe realize that it wasn't just Iris that had Barry's heart [when Linda and Barry] were dating, but he had the city in his heart as well, as The Flash?
Malese: Right, yeah. We'll see what happens with that.
Access: Tell me about filming the scene where you come face-to-face with Zoom. In the photo, of course, it looks atmospheric and scary and the mask is kind of horrifying. In person, is it the same? Does it have some of the same characteristics it does on screen?
Malese: Oh, absolutely. … Seeing Zoom in person was terrifying. And I know Candice couldn't even look at him. She was like, 'Nope! Nope! Get that thing away!' His mask, oh my gosh, it was so creepy. And doing scenes with him, it wasn't hard to get the screams out. He was very menacing.
Zoom and Grant Gustin as The Flash in 'The Flash' Season 2, Episode 6 -- 'Enter Zoom' (The CW)
Access: What is the flavor of the interactions between Linda and Zoom? Do we kind of get more of an idea of – more than just being a villain, like who Zoom is or what his motives are, or maybe he's not a total psycho?
Malese: Well, as far as I know, Zoom is just bad to the bone (laughs). He's just straight up supervillain. So, yeah, that's what's going on.
Access: You get to do action. What kind of stunt training did you get to do?
Malese: That was another thing 'The Flash' has blessed me with as an actress. Not only do I get to play two characters, but I also got to do all the stunt work that I really never got to do before, which excites me so much. We got to do choreography, we made sure Dr. Light had her own little details as far as her fight style, so that was really fun figuring that out. … In the next episode, I'm thrown off the side of a building, so that was also very thrilling and definitely something to check off my bucket list as an actress. But it was also awesome because our director, JJ [Makaro], was actually [our] stunt coordinator before all of this, and this is actually his directorial debut, so we had him kind of guiding us in all of these stunts and all of the choreography. He was just the perfect person to do it and I know it's gonna look absolutely amazing.
Access: Will we see more of you as Dr. Light in this episode?
Malese: We get to see both Linda and Dr. Light, but I think the fun part of the next episode is seeing Linda trying to be Dr. Light, which is hard to wrap your mind around, but that was definitely my favorite part of the next episode.
Malese Jow as Linda Park and Grant Gustin as The Flash in 'The Flash' Season 2, Episode 6 -- 'Enter Zoom' (The CW)
Access: There's a really cute promo photo of The Flash carrying your character. Are we going to get to see some sweet interactions between the two of them? It looks like he's maybe rescuing you.
Malese: Yeah, that's actually, that goes with one of the big stunts I was talking about – and it is cool because Grant even said himself, he was like, This is kind of one of the most heroic stunts that I've gotten to really do'… It does look like what it is. Flash is being an amazing hero and Linda having a moment of being the damsel in distress, which is awesome.
"The Flash" airs Tuesday at 8/7c on The CW.
