In the latest episode, The Flash introduced a highly-anticipated brand new baddie by the name of Amunet Black, played by none other than Katee Sackhoff of Battlestar Galactica and Longmire fame. Amunet is a villainess known to fans of DC Comics, but Sackhoff made sure to put her own twist on the character that resulted in an unexpected trait. When asked why she waited until The Flash to join a superhero project, Katee Sackhoff had this to say about Amunet and what she added to the role:
I've taken meetings about so many different shows and it never was the right time for me. I was always sort of tied up with Longmire and we didn't know what was going to happen with that and also I never really wanted to play a hero. I don't really have that in me. I like the layers that villains have and the challenge it is to sort of make a villain relatable and someone that you actually want to win I think is much more interesting to me. It was never really the right character and it was also really never the right pitch. [The Flash executive producer] Andrew Kreisberg sort of got on the phone with me and was like, you know, 'We'd love to have you. What do you want to do?' And that's sort of how Amunet came around. I asked him if I could make her British. He was like, 'What?' In my mind, I was like 'It makes complete sense. She's Blacksmith, she controls metal.' That to me could very easily be European. It sort of makes sense. And I said 'Everything just sounds more evil with an accent.'
Accents aren't really apparent one way or another with characters on the pages of comics, but the original Amunet was decidedly not a Brit. Fans of the character in the comics -- and fans who know that Sackhoff herself is American -- were probably surprised to hear the English twang in Amunet's speech. Apparently, the accent came from Sackhoff's interpretation of the character rather than from Andrew Kreisberg or any of the other folks behind the scenes. Who can really argue that villains sound all the more evil when they have English accents?
All of this said, Amunet wasn't exactly the best-known DC Comics character ever to make it to the small screen, and Katee Sackhoff's performance will likely introduce her to many people for the very first time. According to Sackhoff, Amunet's relatively minor role in the grand scheme of DC Comics history had some interesting effects on how she and the Flash team crafted the TV interpretation:
On one hand, there's not a lot of source material to pull from. On the other hand, it gave me the ability to make her British, to sort of like change her constantly because there's really no rulebook when it comes to Amunet. It was sort of just like she controls metal and that's it. It was very sort of make-it-up-as-you-go because there's not a lot there. So it has been fun for those reasons. It's sort of weird that I was talking to Kevin Smith, and he goes 'Who you playing?' I said Amunet, and he goes 'Who's that?' People know Blacksmith but I don't think she's been around enough for people to know exactly who she is, and that's fun for me.
It's a real sign that a comic character is somewhat obscure if renowned comic guru Kevin Smith doesn't recognize the name. While Katee Sackhoff's version of Amunet will have some deliberate similarities to the Joker of Batman lore, we can probably count on a character unlike any other on TV, whether in the Arrow-verse or otherwise.
Amunet will return to The Flash in the ninth episode of Season 4. If you want to see Katee Sackhoff in action before that point, you can catch her in the sixth and final season of Longmire, which premieres on Netflix on Friday, November 17 at 12:01 a.m. PT. For other shows that won't be back for new seasons, swing by our breakdown of all the 2017 TV cancellations so far.
