Fan Fest ‘Arrow’ Exclusive Interview: Josh Segarra and The Biggest Challenge of Playing Prometheus
For those of you who have been keeping up with Arrow, I am sure that you will find yourself agreeing with me when I say that Prometheus was probably one of the best villains we have seen Oliver face. Not only was he physically strong, he was also psychologically intelligent and destructive. We saw him break Oliver in ways that no one has done before.
This past weekend, at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest NY/NJ, I had the amazing opportunity to speak with Josh Segarra – who played Prometheus.
Unlike his on screen character, Josh was one of the most personable people I have ever met! His main goal while playing Prometheus was one thing – not to disappoint the fans!
Jules: In the comics the character of Adrian Chase is in fact Vigilante. It was certainly a shocking twist for fans to discover that Adrian was Prometheus. Did you know going into the role that your character was going to be this pas seasons ‘big bad’ the entire time?
Josh: Yeah, absolutely! I knew when I talked to my boss that I was going to be the big bad. Now, a week later when I saw a press release saying I was going to be Adrian Chase Vigilante I definitely thought that was who I was going to be playing so I went and bought all the comics and I got all of my regular research in. I was talking to my boss and this was right before I went out to Vancouver and I was discussing this vigilante stuff and they’re like… ‘you know that’s not who you are playing, right? You’re playing Prometheus! We told you that.’
So I was just like ‘oh yeah!’. We just put that out there to fake out all the real comic book fans so we could at least get them looking elsewhere. So that way on the reveal, I thought we could surprise you a little bit.
Jules: Chase was extremely psychologically damaging to Oliver. Why would you say his methods were more effective as opposed to Deathstroke, Ra’s Al Ghul and Damien Darhk – who chose to go with the path of violence in order to get their revenge?
Josh: Well, Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow. He’s strong, fast, and he’s built himself to be a killing machine in retrospect. So then of course Deathstroke is also a killing machine. They’re like two bulls in a cage that can just go at each other. So for me, looking at Adrian Chase I was going ‘okay, the dude trained for years to combat with the Green Arrow, but what will his advantage be?’
His advantage was to try to outwit him or try to set a plan or a trap in motion to try and set out what the Green Arrow could have on Prometheus physically. What he could have on him skill wise. So that way I loved what they did with our rivalry. Our fight scenes are matched but that dude is a monster so he could take him down.
Whenever you thought Prometheus was going to lose, or he was going to lose edge at all, you see Prometheus come in and do something mental on the next episode. You see him set another plan in motion. I loved it.
Jules: What challenges did you find yourself facing playing the role of Prometheus?
Josh: Oh man, a lot of challenges! With every role I play I have my challenges and I have my gifts. With this role there were a lot of gifts AND a lot of challenges. A challenge to me on this one was to make sure that I didn’t disappoint the fans! I’m taking something out of the comics. Now we know three different characters. We’ve got Prometheus, Vigilante and Adrian Chase.
I wanted to pull something from all of them because I was creating something new in the canon. So the night before the reveal I slept I think 30 seconds (laughs), because I was freaking out hoping the fans would enjoy it. I think that we did alright!
Although the character of Adrian Chase may be lost to us, we still have yet to see what destruction he has left behind.
Arrow will return on October 12th at 9PM/EST on the CW.
Julia recently published her first novel, titled; Anomic. She is currently co-authoring a novel called ‘Snow Falls’. She has a B.A in Communications with concentrations in Professional Writing and Public Relations. She is also in the United States Army Reserves as a Military Police Officer, and is currently in the process of going back to school for her Masters Degree in Business. When she isn’t writing, she is co-owner of a film production studio called ‘Valentine Productions LLC’ and she frequently spends her weekends acting in films, or being a stuntwoman.
