Spoilers for Legends of Tomorrow Season 5 and some mild spoilers for Season 6 follow. Quotes have been edited for length and clarity. It’s the wackiest, one of the most beloved, and critically revered of all the DCTV shows. In a panel moderated by Chancellor Agard of Entertainment Weekly, most of the cast and some of the creative heads of Legends of Tomorrow, including Caity Lotz, Nick Zano, Tala Ashe, Jess Macallan, Matt Ryan, Amy Lousie Pemberton, Shayan Sobhian, Olivia Swann, producer Phil Klemmer, executive producer Keto Shimizu, and executive producer Grainne Godfree, the Waverider crew and more reflected on Season 5 and what fans can expect from Season 6.
After a hilarious blooper reel showing the consistently boisterous good time behind the scenes on this show, and after describing what each of their characters would be doing during the quarantine (Zari would conquer Tiktok), they began with their reflections on the making of Season 5. Caity Lotz in particular described the experience of directing her first episode, with “Mortal Khanbat.” “It was so much fun. On so many levels I learned so much,” she said. “The cast is amazing. After so many years of building rapport with each other, it made it easier of course.” The two newcomers, Shayan and Olivia, reflected on stepping into Legends, emphasizing how welcome they were made to feel on the show. On what struck her most when she came on, Olivia immediately said, “How much fun everyone was having! It was so easygoing, I was expecting it to be [like the] military, and I got so nervous but it was the opposite! Everyone was so chill and welcoming and lovely!”
Shayan’s experience was similar. “I was definitely nervous going into it, but pretty quickly I realized it was relaxed and everyone was super chill.”
His show sister, Tala, who played two versions of her character, reflected on the experience of introducing Zari 2.0 and continuing on as her into Season 6, and how much she would miss playing the first version of her character. “I have mixed feelings about it because I really do love both Zari 1.0 and 2.0,” she said, “I was surprised at how genuinely sad I was shooting that last episode. I had these very split-personality moments where I would be mad at myself shooting scenes! I would be very angry at 2.0 or vice versa! I’m excited about developing 2.0.”
On their sibling dynamic and how it would develop going into Season 6, Tala and Shayan expressed their excitement at exploring how their relationship would develop, as they felt they didn’t have enough time to explore it in Season 5 with everything else going on. “Even though we establish this brother-sister relationship, we didn’t actually get so much time to explore that!” Tala exclaimed. “But now I’m sort of interested that now the walls are down between the two of them to explore that, but I also hope there’s still some of that antagonistic brother-sister relationship, and I think the writers are going in that direction.”
Shayan concurred, mentioning that there would likely be an exploration of their dynamic growing up and how it affects them now. “Yeah like some childhood stuff would be very interesting. Behrad constantly in the shadow of his older sister who was amazing at everything!” Keto gave some more exact details of what the audience can expect from the Tarazi siblings in Season 5. “We get into exactly that [relationship] in episode 2! Of what it was like for Behrad to grow up in the shadow of [his] sister.”
Olivia, on her character Astra’s dynamic with John’s Constantine, mentioned that we would find her living in his mansion, trying to learn to lead a normal life after her escapades in Hell. “If you put Astra and John living ‘peacefully’ together, maybe that’s not going to happen! So I think it would be fun to see them trying to co-habitate day in day out, which is something that isn’t going to be possible? I don’t know!”
Grainne spoke on the group dynamic going into Season 6, and how Sara’s (very) abrupt abduction by aliens would leave the team. “With Sara away, the kids kind of go crazy. Sara’s one of the grounding presences in the show, along with Zari 1.0 who’s stuck in the totem.” Phil further elaborated, saying that “Ava takes Sara’s absence the hardest.” Keto assuaged fan concerns of Sara potentially being gone for the season. “Don’t worry we’re not losing Sara from the story! We will be tracking her adventure.”
Grainne made mention of a new Legend, played by newcomer Lisseth Chavez. “She is a young Latinx woman from Texas who was kidnapped by aliens and has a thirst for vengeance! She’s not going to be the loveable loser that we normally have. She’s someone at the top and the Legends need to react to her.”
On approaching the aliens and how they would differ from other CWverse depictions of extra-terrestrials, Keto elaborated that Legends was going to do its own distinct take. “We’re really trying to lean into the alien genre,” she explained, “different from shows like Supergirl which does its own thing.” Perhaps the best summation of what makes Legends so special came from Tala. “This strange time that we’re going through, I think, I love our show but I miss our show so intensely right now, I really hope I never take it for granted, but this time has made me really miss what we had, what we built! It takes time, and the right group of people that miraculously are assembled season after season.”