Ian Bohen Breaks Down That ‘Superman & Lois’ Game Changer
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Season 2 Episode 7 of Superman & Lois, “Anti-Hero.” If you don’t want to be spoiled, go hit your X-K inhaler and come back when you feel the power.]
We knew Lt. Mitch Anderson was trouble the second Ian Bohen showed up in the season premiere, but it wasn’t until recently that we saw just how bad the Teen Wolf alum’s Department of Defense d-bag could be. Not only did he wrongfully haul Kal-El (Tyler Hoechlin) into custody for protecting Bizarro, but he locked him up with ne’er-do-well half-brother Tal-Rho (Adam Rayner) and that is just cruel. (Seriously, the El family’s answer to Loki never shuts up.)
Shane Harvey/The CW
To make things worse, Anderson went full-frontal nuts tonight in his mission to capture Bizarro by dosing himself with X-K and killing the sweetly backwards version of our hero during a brutal showdown at the Fortress. Then, because that’s just not awful enough, he went AWOL from the D.O.D., tracked down parasitic cult lady Ally Allston (Rya Kihlstedt), and offered her Bizarro’s energy-sucking amulet. Smallville is not big enough for these two to be getting chummy.
We spoke with Bohen about his character’s shift from military man to murderer and the obvious fun he is having working with Wolf pack pal Hoechlin again. There was also talk of the reunion movie that is in the works, but you will have to wait to hear more about that later. We had more pressing matters to discuss…like whether Anderson will be sticking around after tonight’s heel turn.
You have been working on the show for a bit now—how are you liking it?
Ian Bohen: You know, I’m with friends that I’ve known for a long time, so that always makes anything easy. Everyone’s welcoming and warm, I get to do fun things. Yeah. It’s real dream and I couldn’t be happier.
You say you get to do some fun things, but in this episode, you got to do some really fun things. You’re back hooked up to wires up and fighting Tyler again.
[Laughs] This is something that I had known was coming a couple of weeks ago and he and I just kind of shared a laugh about it. We have this expression, “It’s what we do.” So we were elated to [be] back to kind of where we started together. It’s so much fun, play-wrestling your buddy and pretending that you’re flying. We’re just like kids.
And you got to deal with two Tylers!
Exactly. And I have different relationships with each one. Inverse, as you know, is the major theme of the season. But it’s really difficult when you have to play two characters, so he’s doing a tremendous job of separating them and playing different attributes for each one. You’re gonna even see something in Episode 10 that’s gonna blow your mind really.
What happens this week is a big game-changer for Anderson.
This is [the point of no] return, yeah. He was already off the rails, but as I was reading the scripts up to this point, I always thought “OK, he’s redeemable. He’s not gone too far. He can get back on the right path.” Because he’s fundamentally trying to do the right thing. He’s not just a renegade. But after this, his career is over and it’s gonna be hard to have a place for him in a regular society going forward. So he’s made a decision and he feels that righteous in his choices that he’s going to risk everything for what he believes.
It’s an interesting kind of commentary on how far patriotism can be taken…all the way to deadly force.
That’s a really good observation. Like, how deep do your beliefs run? How far are you willing to go to do what you believe is right? And when you have the burden of the safety of the world on your shoulders and you can’t make a mistake, on one hand, it’s easier to sacrifice yourself for that greater good, right? But on the other hand, it will push you to do something ultimately selfish. So Anderson will be judged [in the coming weeks] and you’ll see how he’s going to be reacted to…and ultimately what the core of him is about. I won’t tell you that yet now, but it will become apparent.
I feel like we haven’t fully seen what is his motivating drive is here.
I had to pepper those things in on my own and really just kind of take shots at them as I was doing them. I have a path and that’s what I hope will be seen as we move forward.
Shane Harvey/The CW
We all know you and Tyler are buds. So when you are working with him and he’s in the costume, how much heat are you giving him?
Oh tons! [Laughs] I remember the first time he came out wearing it, I was like, “What are you doing? Who do you think you are?” And he just laughs and laughs. But I will say, the joking doesn’t last that long because the suit is so badass. You look at it and the way it’s put together like it is triple A-plus. So now it’s like, you don’t even think about it. If we walked into Starbucks and he was wearing it, I would just be like, “This is how it is.” So we’ve had our laughs but it’s so normalized now.
It helps that Tyler was basically genetically engineered to be Superman.
It’s a bit annoying, right?! [Laughs]. Yeah, I’ve had to find flaws to tease him about. You know, a bit of gray hair in the chin perhaps or at the temples. Or like, “Hey let’s have a pushup contest.”
Teen Wolf ended about five years ago, but this is your first time doing one of the superhero shows. How is that possible?
Well, it wasn’t for lack of trying. I have been pretty tied up out in the boonies in Montana. I went straight from our Teen Wolf wrap to Yellowstone and that has been ongoing ever since. I’ve really been committed to that and was so lucky to have, for some odd reason, this time period off. It just slotted in perfect. Normally it wouldn’t have been able to happen, so I feel very, very lucky and am extra motivated to make the best of it.
Having said that, now that I’ve had a little taste of this life, of course I want more. [Laughs] It’s so exciting and it’s so dynamic and such a departure…you have a whole other dimension that is so fun to to play in.
There were sequences in tonight’s episode in the Fortress that legitimately felt like a comic book come to life.
I’ll tell you, the other day we were outside somewhere and they erected the equivalent of a zip line and you’re in the harness, flying through the sky—not on a green screen—and here I am suspended 50-feet off the ground and it’s like, “Who am I? What is this?” That doesn’t get old. Yeah. It doesn’t get old.
And what can you tell me about the Teen Wolf movie? Are you up for working with Tyler Hoechlin even more?
[Laughs] Oh for sure. You can’t do it without Peter Hale. I mean, you could but why would you want to do that? Yeah, let’s do it. I wanna play with those kids again and make the fans happy. They wanted a seventh season, they wanted more Teen Wolf. So let’s give ‘em something. And it would be fun, so why not?
Have you spoken to writers or producers about finding a way to keep Anderson in the S&L universe?
Funny, you should ask! So [exec producer] Kristi Korzec and Todd Helbing, the show’s creator, are like the brain trusts of writers and I’m always sending them little texts, like, “Hey, so you know, maybe…he’s not really dead, right?” Because you know, we can do anything we want, right, wink wink. And they always have that great answer where they say “Listen, it’s the genre show, there’s a parallel world, anything can happen, but no promises.”
I would obviously love to come back and do the work, but also to see this new family of people that I’ve met. This cast is as high quality as you ever have in terms of an environment to work in. I would stay for years if that was something we could do.
Superman & Lois, Tuesdays, 8/7c, The CW
