At eight years old, Jordan Elsass saw The WB’s Smallville DVDs at the library. He asked his mom what it was, and she told him it was about Superman growing up.
“It’s just crazy,” Jordan said. “If you told me at that age, that one day I’d be playing one of Superman’s sons in a very similar show on the same channel and in the same universe. It’s unreal. It’s truly incredible.”
The Superman & Lois star feels like watching all 10 seasons as a kid was the best preparation he could have done for his role as Jonathan Kent. He admits to never watching any of the Arrowverse shows but thinks it would be helpful to watch them one day and would love for Melissa Benoist to come on the show. Supergirl is family, after all.
In the last episode of Superman & Lois before the break, his character truly snaps. He’s broken-hearted and lashing out at everyone. He succumbs to alcohol to numb his pain.
“Jonathan does sort of snap after the breakup. That was something that was not only fascinating to play because we hadn’t really seen that side of Jonathan so far. We’d sort of seen Jonathan as the quote-unquote good brother. The less emotional brother, the more stable brother,” Jordan said.
The CW actor enjoys screaming in a scene because it’s a “fun and safe way to get your aggression out.” He compares it to going to a gym. It’s a “metaphorical punching bag.”
He also said that it was nice to see the realism in Jonathan because “no matter how perfect or how good a person might be, everybody gets angry.”
He also hasn’t gotten a chance to play roles like this before.
“For [Little Fire’s Everywhere], I’m playing Trip Richardson. I didn’t really have any scenes like that.” Jordan said. “There wasn’t a lot of anger. It was a little more, I don’t want to say one-dimensional, but because I wasn’t the lead, I wasn’t able to take it as far. I wasn’t able to push it that much, just limited by the writing and the script.”
Jordan teases there will be more of these scenes coming up in the season.
He noted that his parents aren’t as cool as Clark Kent. They would not let him off the hook for drinking, and even though he’s of drinking age in Canada, they still don’t like him drinking, which is fine because Jordan isn’t much of a drinker.
His character could probably take a note from him: “drinking, especially when you’re younger and your brain’s still developing, you’re more prone to making foolish decisions while under the influence.”
While we can look forward to more emotional scenes from Jonathan, when we meet back up with him in “Broken Trust,” he “internalizes things and [is] bouncing back quickly.” He’s also feeling more at home in Smallville as he’s making friends and fitting in a bit more.
As we go into Tuesday’s episode, we will see both boys more involved with the action on the show.
“Now that the twins know their dad’s Superman, they’re gonna be a little more involved, and that puts them in danger sometimes,” he said of him and his on-screen brother Jordan Kent.
“Some of the stuff that Jonathan is going to have to face in these upcoming episodes is going to be really intense for him, for his parents, for his brother, for his friends. So it’s a lot to handle. And I think that we’re going to definitely see some changes in the character as time goes on,” he added.
Jordan said that any severe trauma would force a person to grow up quickly, and that’s what we can expect from both boys, but the actor doesn’t want to spoil too much.
We can look forward to never-before-seen stuff with Clark and Lois and things “that really haven’t been seen in this universe.”
I couldn’t let Jordan go without asking about his time working with Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Both leading ladies taught him a lot by example.
“I learned so much, especially from Reese being around her, having her playing my mom, I saw so much,” he said. “She was always herself and always so kind and funny and charismatic, but she was very professional at the same time. Without seeming guarded or without seeming fake.”
He didn’t get to work with Kerry as much but said, “she’s hilarious. she would crack jokes on set.”
Superman & Lois returns with new episodes on Tuesday, May 18 at 9 pm/8c on The CW.
