Why Titans' Brenton Thwaites Was Originally 'Frustrated' By Season 3's Big Nightwing Twist
The Nightwing actor had some concerns.
Warning: SPOILERS for Titans Season 3 are ahead!
Titans Season 3 saw Brenton Thwaites’ Dick Grayson and his Titans cohorts trying to keep Gotham City safe from Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow and Jason Todd/Red Hood following Bruce Wayne’s departure as Batman, and the hero now known as Nightwing paid a fatal price to in his efforts to protect his old vigilante stomping grounds. At the end of the episode “The Call Is Coming from Inside the House,” Dick was killed by a crowd riled up by this season’s main antagonists, and while this resulted in his demise, he was resurrected in the following episode, “Prodigal,” when Raven and Beast Boy deposited him into a Lazarus Pit. However, when Thwaites learned about the plot twist, he was initially frustrated with this development in Dick’s arc.
During my recent conversation with Brenton Thwaites about his experience on Titans Season 3, I asked how he reacted when he first learned that Dick Grayson would die, and then swiftly be brought back to life as this latest season was winding down. He responded thusly:
Titans may be a comic book show, i.e. inspired by source material where resurrection is commonplace, but as Brenton Thwaites pointed out, the now-HBO Max show takes death more seriously. So originally the actor was concerned that taking Dick down this path would reduce the stakes in future Titans seasons, but upon seeing how this sequence of events was framed so that it was clear Dick wouldn’t be gone for long, and well as following chats with executive producer Greg Walker, Thwaites came around on the plot twist. Plus, like he said, plenty of Titans viewers were already aware of the healing power of the Lazarus Pit, and even those unfamiliar with the comics had already been clued in on that, having seen Jason Todd be tossed in there after he was murdered by The Joker in the flashback episode “Lazarus.”
As far as Dick Grayson’s Lazarus Pit resurrection goes, while his body was being healed in “Prodigal,” he was bombarded by a series of bizarre visions. So while Nightwing emerged from the Pit physically fine, I inquired with Brenton Thwaites about if the resurrection will have a mental effect on him going forward. Here’s what the actor had to say:
Of course, Dick Grayson wasn’t the only character in Titans Season 3 to be brought back to life, as Donna Troy and Tim Drake managed to escape the afterlife in “Souls,” though Hank Hall was unfortunately left behind. It’s reasonable to assume there will be a few other resurrections across Titans’ future seasons, but with Dick, Brenton Thwaites sees his character’s time in the Lazarus Pit as a good marker for the character’s life. He’ll will still face challenges and adversity as his superhero journey continues, but Thwaites believes Dick’s second lease on life, as well as everything else he went through in Season 3, has left him in a better mindset.
Titans Season 3 is now available in its entirety on HBO Max, and it was announced at DC FanDome last weekend that the series will return for Season 4. While we wait for news about that next round of superhero action, look through our fall 2021 TV premiere schedule to learn what’s airing right now or in the near future.
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Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.