‘Lanterns’ Star Aaron Pierre Breaks Down John’s Backstory Episode

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of “Lanterns,” now streaming on HBO Max.

From the series’ opening scene, “Lanterns” sets up John Stewart’s (Aaron Pierre) calling to one day step into his own as Green Lantern. But it’s not until Sunday’s episode that we learn just how long John has been preparing and training — at the direction of his parents — to one day take Hal Jordan’s (Kyle Chandler) title.

“It was a gift to have the opportunity to explore each of these characters with such enormous depth,” Pierre tells Variety of filming Episode 3. “It’s not a given that you get to have this much experience with a character, and live this much with a character in your portrayal.”

In the latest “Lanterns” episode, John is grilled about his difficult life choices by one of the Guardians (Laura Linney) to see whether he’s worthy of replacing Hal. It’s the moment John has been waiting for all his life — the moment he gets to prove exactly why he is worthy of the ring.

“I know exactly why me,” John says at the beginning of the interview.

The episode cuts back and forth between John’s tense interview and his upbringing, revealing how John was conditioned to be fearless from a young age. The flashbacks show how desperate his parents become after John Stewart, Sr. (J. Alphonse Nicholson) is tested by the Guardians in the middle of the night, ultimately failing to become Green Lantern because he shows fear. Investing in John’s future is how the family finds salvation.

As the son of somebody who had real potential to become Green Lantern, both John’s father and Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones), his mother, recognize that if they do everything in their power, John will be the perfect candidate. In order to test him during his childhood, his parents do everything from shooting an apple off his head to leaving him stranded in a dangerous part of town, forcing John to fend for himself. They also lie, and tell him that the Guardians are always watching over him through birds.

Knowing how everything John has done in his life has been with the goal of one day becoming Green Lantern, including joining the Marines and isolating himself from other people in his life, informed how Pierre played his budding dynamic with Chandler from the beginning.

“He’s had a wealth of life experience, more life experience than people twice, three times his age have even come close,” Pierre says.

Jones wanted to show that despite her stern attitude with John and forcing him to grow up, her love for her child always comes through.

“I really wanted to show that militant side of her, and that she made that decision at a very young age for him, and that is his destiny,” Jones says. “No matter what happens, she’s gonna stick with it.”

The biggest challenge was showing those moments of vulnerability when her character doesn’t speak, Jones says: “Like telling him to shoot a gun off of his father’s head, but then seeing in her face how much that breaks her.”

When a young John learns that his parents lied to him about the Guardians always watching over him, he grapples with the reality that he wasn’t chosen, and will have to work harder than most people around him to prove that he’s worthy. At one point, Bernadette even tells him: “Sometimes, a Black man has to raise his own hand. Doesn’t mean you’re not good enough, doesn’t mean you’re not better. It just means they don’t see us.”

“The importance of having no fear in a society, and also being a person of color in this country, fear is instilled in our ancestry as well,” Jones says. “That was also an important piece to talk about. How do we extract that for him to become the Green Lantern?”

Nicholson adds: “It’s real, man. Yeah, I know we all want to escape from it but sometimes those questions need to be addressed even in our fictional worlds, right? Why do they make us have these feelings or why do they exist? And so just asking the questions sometimes allows room for people to talk about it. I think that’s what great writers do.” 

The idea of raising John to be the next Green Lantern is largely born out of his father’s trauma. Investing in his son, and doing everything he can to give John the highest odds possible, becomes the only way he knows how to move forward.

“He doesn’t want to let his son down. Essentially, he felt like he let himself down, he let his community down, let his wife down, so now it’s up to him to make sure that his son doesn’t feel that way and doesn’t go into the same spiral of depression,” Nicholson says. “It’s really cool to see him protect his son in a really tough way, but it’s tough love.”

The major turning point in the episode comes when John takes matters into his own hands by shooting an apple off his mother’s head. He’s finally become exactly who his parents raised him to be.

“It’s him taking a step into his own lane and really showing how fearless he is because that’s a huge risk, right?” Nicholson says. “He showed an immense amount of confidence, and I’m proud as his father to have shown him how to have that confidence early on.”

As Pierre looks back on filming, one of the most enjoyable parts of the episode was getting to work with the child actors, including Jayce Eiland and Cairo Cash Lee, who play the younger versions of John.

“They really need to be celebrated, acknowledged and commended for delivering all of the emotion and beyond that was necessary,” Pierre says. “It was very rare that we were working on the same location or on the same day because it’s a completely different timeline, but anytime I had the opportunity, I would definitely give them a fist and just tell them how proud I was.”