Brandon Chats with Media on Ray Palmer, Atom Suit

Ahead of tonight's second episode of ARROW which sees Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh) pursue Felicity Smoak (Emily Bett Rickards), comes two new phone interviews via Access Hollywood, MTV and Comic Book Resources. Brandon sheds a bit more light on what we can expect from Palmer in the future and what the plans are for the Atom suit.

Access: From the previews of this week's episode, it looks like there is some fighting going on in the company and you are there when it happens. How does that affect Ray, seeing all this stuff go down? That must be a surprise.
Brandon: It's a surprise. It's the first the time he basically sees – Arrow shows up… as a result of this, incident and it's kind of one of those moments of -- what does Ray think of that? You kind of see him watching the fight happening and it's kind of the two worlds colliding and it's just kind of left up to the audience to decide if Ray doesn't like him or does like him.

Access: Are you hoping to get into the fighting action? That's something everyone seems to get wrapped up in at some point on this show.
Brandon: Yeah, well I think definitely that's one of the things that will be cool whenever that and whatever capacity that happens [in]. It always is fun, but then, part of me is like, 'Yeah, it's gonna be fun,' and then I remember how long it takes some days. It's a lot of work. That stuff is an amazing amount of work, but the good thing about this show is all the fight stuff is so well supported. The actors, the stunt crew, the team -- they have plenty of time to rehearse, they get it right, they do it safe and the stunt doubles are so amazing. All the men and women who work on the show do a fantastic job of making it look so real. .. Also, the positive thing about this show is that, I believe that I will have a mask and so if and when Ray gets into the actual -- or The Atom -- gets into the fighting, it'll be easier to have somebody doing what I can't, whereas Superman was all me all the time, or it was a computer, but mostly, it was me.

Source: Access Hollywood

“Marc said that if the shrinking was going to happen, it’s more likely to be on ‘The Flash,’” Routh continued. “But I have no knowledge of a crossover or any of that. ‘Arrow’ is very grounded in reality, so nobody really has any powers. That is a challenging thing, to have you bring a character like the Atom in, with his trademark thing being that he shrinks.”

“They have a plan [for Ray's powers], I just don’t know all of it because I am a silly actor and I tend to run my mouth just like other silly actors, so they don’t tell us everything,” he said. “But just because he’s not shrinking doesn’t mean that he might not be doing something else, or be involved in some other kind of superhero-y way. I know that there is some type of suit thing happening, though I’m not at liberty to discuss much. But it looks cool, and I would be happy to wear it.”

Source: MTV

How did you become involved with "Arrow?"
It was crazy. I was on a movie working with Caity Lotz and Tom Cavanagh called "400 Days" this summer. Then I got a call that I might have a meeting about "Arrow." It's like, "How crazy?" Caity is on "Arrow" and Tom is on their other show, "Flash." I had a really good meeting with Marc [Guggenheim] and Andrew [Kreisberg] and things went from there. They told me the outline for the character. I started looking up the Atom because I didn't know much about him and started to get excited. I did a little read with Emily [Bett Rickards] to make sure our tech banter would work well together. It was a win and then I started working a couple of weeks later.

You've seen the sketches for the Atom costume. Any thoughts on it?
That it's cool and I won't be embarrassed. It's pretty cool -- looking from the early sketches I saw. Things change all the time, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it's put into use. I think the audience will be excited to see it as well. 

Source: Comic Book Resources