‘Superman & Lois’: Alex Garfin Teases What’s Next For Vigilante Jordan

Superman is missing! Long live… Superboy? Well, not quite yet, but as seen on tonight’s episode of Superman & Lois — and spoilers past this point — Jordan Kent (Alex Garfin) is fully in his hoodie-wearing vigilante hero phase, saving first Kyle Cushing (Erik Valdez) from a fire, then Lois Lane (Eizabeth Tulloch) and Sam Lane (Dylan Walsh) from some X-K hepped up thugs. But given these superheroics, is Jordan going to be suiting up anytime soon?

“I invoke my fifth amendment to my right to remain silent,” Garfin told Decider, laughing, when asked whether he’ll be donning a Superboy suit. “I think it is fair to assume whatever momentum we are setting forth for this season will continue on. However, plot twists may shape and change the direction.”

With that enigmatic note out of the way, this was overall a big episode for Jordan — as his father his trapped on Bizarro world for a month (hence the episode’s title, “30 Days and 30 Nights”), but also because after having to deal with the double duty of superhero-ing, and his girlfriend Sarah trying to help her mother win the mayorship of Smallville. Lana (Emmanuelle Chriqui) does win, but for Jordan, there’s a cost: unable to tell Sarah that he has superpowers, she breaks up with him.

To find out more about the episode, and some teases of what’s next for the series as Season 2 heads into its endgame, read on:

Decider: Congrats on the Season 3 pick-up, what was it like hearing that news?

Alex Garfin: You know, it was expected, but it’s always good to hear out loud. It’s always good to have that confirmation. Tumultuous times with, I think there’s some corporate stuff going on right now. So it was expected, but still good to hear.

Let’s talk about Jordan flying in the episode… You got to do it before as an evil Kryptonian, but there’s this joyous look on your face here. What was it like filming that moment?

That was a moment that Todd Helbing and I had discussed. He’s an amazing showrunner. He mentioned, “when something really good happens to you, like you win the lottery on a TV show.” He’s like, “Yeah, like that!” Honestly, I don’t necessarily, in my style of acting, imagine stuff that’s happen to me, but I certainly had a little bit of that emotion when that moment happened. It was the middle of the night in that warehouse and it was just crazy and hectic. We had one shot to get it right, I want to say because there’s a lot of stuff going. It happened and we moved on, and we were real happy about it.

He’s also got this whole vigilante thing going on which is giving off some Smallville/Tom Welling vibes.. Have you been looking at his performance at all, or is it your own, fresh thing?

I did take Tyler [Hoechlin]’s approach in not watching too much Superman stuff. I watched the Donner film, just so I can get a sense of the directorial style that we trying to go for at the first couple episodes. I was trying to do a fresh take. It’s a really fun process to play. You’re a teenager, you just discovered you got superpowers and now you’re going to go carry on your father’s work and you’re going to save, and kick some butt. That’s amazing.

Let’s talk about the flip-side then. There’s a couple of moments here where he’s not becoming evil, but moving into darker territory. Particularly talking to Lois about how he has the power, you can’t stop him… Are you delving into that darkness? Will he push it further? Or is this just the situation he’s in right now?

The superhero genre often does a good job of showing that darkness comes from dark times and dark experiences. You’ve seen that throughout every villain origin story, but also in every interesting hero one. At this moment of time, he doesn’t know where his Dad is, and he knows for the first time that it’s just not a reporting job. It’s because he’s Superman and because something is going very wrong. Being in that situation, it’s tough on a young kid. Young kids don’t even know what to do with those emotions. They don’t know what emotion they’re having, so you start to see that in his experiences with his mom. You also start to see something very different than the characters seen before. You start to see him controlling his circumstances rather than the other way around. He begins to take on the responsibility. He begins to try to save people. In that regard, it’s him maturing. Yes, he has his dark moments, and that’s just him being a kid, but they also mature him. That was something we really try to make it in the performance but also the writing.

With Clark gone for so long, is there a part of him that thinks he may have to take on the mantle of Superman?

I think so. A lot of times, life kind of makes a metaphor with itself to the most basic level. Momentum is an interesting concept. Natural velocity — I know I just came out of high school physics. [laughs] There’s a lot of momentum in what Superman does, it’s very urgent, it has a lot of velocity. It’s also important, it has a lot of mass. So, when that goes away, that momentum kind gets carried through Jordan in his way as well. He has a maturity under him and he breaks under that maturity. Eventually, it becomes too much. I can relate to him on many levels. I was thrust into this world from when I was a Junior in high school. I remember taking on responsibility and trials and tribulations that come with it.

Let’s jump over to the romantic side of this episode… Before we even get to what happens here, why do think Jordan was cool with Sarah kissing someone else? Is it because he wants to be with her so badly? Is it because he is okay with it?

It’s a mix of both. My reasoning in my head was that he really wants to be with her and also the fact that he really has a soft spot for her. He wants to forgive her. Her putting him in a situation when she thought he did something wrong, I’m sure forgiveness was on his mind. So, when he found out she did something wrong, there’s a lot of hurt, but he got over it. He thought he was being mature, but we find out a lot of times maturity is not exactly letting things go. Maturity is knowing the line of what hurt you and what hurts other people.

They do, of course, break up in the episode. I loved how vulnerable you made Jordan there, he completely crumbles.

That was really interesting scene. I had the pleasure of working with Inde Navarrette, who plays Sarah. It was one those scenes we’d had to make in the middle of the night. I have to give a lot of credit there there to Ian Samoil. He was our 1st AD, but he has turned out to be an incredible director. Under his guidance, I felt great doing that scene and I walked away feeling proud about it. There’s actually another cut which I don’t believe they used, maybe in the extended cut, where everyone goes cheers in the background right as he starts to cry. I think we cut it as a joke because we knew it was being cut before then, but I really hope one of these versions, they use it. He walks away, starts crying, and they all are like “Yay!” in the background. [laughs]

There’s also this really great scene with Jordan and Lois on the porch towards the end of the episode where they bond… By the end of this episode, what’s your take on Jordan and his Mom?

Jordan’s relationship with his mom might just be of the more complicated ones in the show and it’s one that we don’t see often. In Metropolis, before Jordan came [to Smallville], his mom was his best friend. He didn’t have any friends in Metropolis. He was very much under her wing, and she begins to push back, and that’s what he see when he goes to Smallville. That mother/son relationship is a lot, especially when the dad is kind of not there, and all of that. By the end of this episode, we see something really magical happen. I think they touch on it with the wine thing. We see two adults talking. We see two adults talking about their situation. It has a mother/son feel, but it’s that grown-up mother/son feeling. He’s not under her wing anymore. And it was tough to get to there, this episode really did catch that bit, and it is really a beautiful thing to see, two people that love each very deeply. It’s nice.

We do get that twist at the end with the Bizarro Jonathan showing up, what can you tease about that?

There will be a lot of red pants, poofy hair. Don’t tell Jordan [Elsass] that I told you this we’ve been laughing about this, but he looks like the drummer from Green Day. [laughs] I can keep going on. I really think it’s the pants that sell it. They wanted Superman. We really have to focus on the pants as the main asset of the character. It starts with the underwear on the outside of the pants, and that was a look for awhile. The Kryptonians got a little confused. And now, we manage to get the underwear inside the pants with the red belt. We go back to Bizarro Jonathan and we have pants that we just look like you would rather see underwear. [Laughs] You know, it’s going to be a lot of fun. I can’t reveal much, that’s why I’m focusing on the pants. It’s going to a lot of fun, Jordan is going to have a really fun time and has had a really fun time playing Jon-El. He idolizes Heath Ledger’s performance in The Dark Knight. Him getting to play a villain, I know is a bit of a dream for him, so I was really happy to see that.

Between Superman being missing, Steel, and now you getting powers, it seems like we’re setting up a bit of a riff on the classic Death of Superman storyline… Are we going to see you dressed up like ’90s Superboy before this is all over?

I invoke my fifth amendment to my right to remain silent. [laughs] I think it is fair to assume whatever momentum we are setting forth for this season will continue on. However, plot twists may shape and change the direction. Going back to high school physics, we’re going to change the vector. [laughs]

Just thematically, as we enter the last few episodes here, what can we expect from Jordan?

More of him maturing, more of him taking steps in the opposite direction, more growing up and more hardening under crazier and crazier circumstances. Also, don’t know much how much we can tease to this, but we start to see more of Natalie and John Henry Irons, who I personally love Tayler Buck in real life, she is a dear friend of mine. It’s fun working with her.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Superman & Lois airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

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