{"id":874722,"date":"2026-08-31T06:46:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T06:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874722\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T06:46:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T06:46:18","slug":"lanterns-star-aaron-pierre-breaks-down-johns-backstory-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/874722\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Lanterns’ Star Aaron Pierre Breaks Down John’s Backstory Episode"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of \u201cLanterns<\/a>,\u201d now streaming on HBO Max.<\/p>\n

\n\tFrom the series\u2019 opening scene, \u201cLanterns\u201d sets up John Stewart\u2019s (Aaron Pierre<\/a>) calling to one day step into his own as Green Lantern. But it\u2019s not until Sunday\u2019s episode that we learn just how long John has been preparing and training \u2014 at the direction of his parents \u2014 to one day take Hal Jordan\u2019s (Kyle Chandler) title.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a gift to have the opportunity to explore each of these characters with such enormous depth,\u201d Pierre tells Variety of filming Episode 3. \u201cIt\u2019s not a given that you get to have this much experience with a character, and live this much with a character in your portrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the latest \u201cLanterns\u201d episode, John is grilled about his difficult life choices by one of the Guardians (Laura Linney) to see whether he\u2019s worthy of replacing Hal. It\u2019s the moment John has been waiting for all his life \u2014 the moment he gets to prove exactly why he is worthy of the ring.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI know exactly why me,\u201d John says at the beginning of the interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe episode cuts back and forth between John\u2019s 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\u2019s future is how the family finds salvation.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the son of somebody who had real potential to become Green Lantern, both John\u2019s father and Bernadette (Jasmine Cephas Jones<\/a>), 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tKnowing 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s had a wealth of life experience, more life experience than people twice, three times his age have even come close,\u201d Pierre says.<\/p>\n

\n\tJones wanted to show that despite her stern attitude with John and forcing him to grow up, her love for her child always comes through.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI 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,\u201d Jones says. \u201cNo matter what happens, she\u2019s gonna stick with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe biggest challenge was showing those moments of vulnerability when her character doesn\u2019t speak, Jones says: \u201cLike telling him to shoot a gun off of his father\u2019s head, but then seeing in her face how much that breaks her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen 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\u2019t chosen, and will have to work harder than most people around him to prove that he\u2019s worthy. At one point, Bernadette even tells him: \u201cSometimes, a Black man has to raise his own hand. Doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not good enough, doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not better. It just means they don\u2019t see us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe 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,\u201d Jones says. \u201cThat was also an important piece to talk about. How do we extract that for him to become the Green Lantern?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNicholson adds: \u201cIt\u2019s 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\u2019s what great writers do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe idea of raising John to be the next Green Lantern is largely born out of his father\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s up to him to make sure that his son doesn\u2019t feel that way and doesn\u2019t go into the same spiral of depression,\u201d Nicholson says. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to see him protect his son in a really tough way, but it\u2019s tough love.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe major turning point in the episode comes when John takes matters into his own hands by shooting an apple off his mother\u2019s head. He\u2019s finally become exactly who his parents raised him to be.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s him taking a step into his own lane and really showing how fearless he is because that\u2019s a huge risk, right?\u201d Nicholson says. \u201cHe showed an immense amount of confidence, and I\u2019m proud as his father to have shown him how to have that confidence early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey really need to be celebrated, acknowledged and commended for delivering all of the emotion and beyond that was necessary,\u201d Pierre says. \u201cIt was very rare that we were working on the same location or on the same day because it\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT:\u00a0This article contains spoilers for Season 1, Episode 3 of \u201cLanterns,\u201d now streaming on HBO Max. From…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":874723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28830,64,63,134,444033,178213,344],"class_list":["post-874722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-aaron-pierre","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-jasmine-cephas-jones","tag-lanterns","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/874723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}