Sterling K. Brown & Justin Hartley Want To Play Green Lantern

Screen Rant

Sterling K. Brown & Justin Hartley Are Both Down To Play Green Lantern

By Derek Stauffer

Published Jun 8, 2018

This is Us actors Justin Hartley and Sterling K. Brown are both expressing interest in playing the DCEU's Green Lanterns, Hal Jordan and John Stewart.

Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley are ready and willing to play titular characters in Green Lantern Corps. The actors who played (adopted) brothers on the NBC drama This is Us have expressed interest in playing live-action versions of the the Green Lanterns, presumably in the DC movie universe (unofficially the DCEU).

The state of the DCEU's Green Lantern Corps movie is a little bit in flux. It was originally part of the DCEU's initial slate that was announced several years ago, but there hasn't been too many updates on that movie ever since. While several movies on Warner Bros.' original slate have already released, and others are still gestating behind the scenes, the only thing DCEU fans know about the Green Lantern Corps movie at this time is that it David S. Goyer is still writing the script and that the movie will feature Hal Jordan and John Stewart. And it looks like the This is Us stars are willing to play those characters on the big screen.

The buzz surrounding Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley becoming Green Lanterns was started by a fan on Twitter. The fan posted a picture of Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart asking if Hartley and Brown would be interested in playing the two iconic DC Comics characters. It didn't take long for Brown, Hartley, and even the official Twitter account of This is Us to chime in with their approval.

This isn't the first time that Brown has expressed interest in playing John Stewart eiter. In early 2017, Brown campaigned on Twitter to play John Stewart, "humbly" sumbitting his name to the "powers that be." Nothing came of it, of course, but Brown has remained a fan. There's nothing official in the works when it comes to Hartley and Brown being cast in Green Lantern Corps. However, stranger things have definitely happened. Both actors have their fair share of experience with the superhero genre as well.

Hartley famously played Oliver Queen aka the Green Arrow on Smallville, and was so popular he almost inspired a Green Arrow centric spin-off. Meanwhile, Sterling K. Brown recently played a small but significant role in Marvel's Black Panther. Brown played the father of Black Panther's central villain Killmonger, but that's not the only role he's known for. Brown's star power is very much on the rise too as he is earning praise and awards for his work on TV, whether it be on This is Us or American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson. The DCEU doesn't lack for star power, but it would do great service to fans if Hartley and Brown were cast as the Green Lanterns in the DCEU.

Furthermore any one who has watched This is Us knows that Sterling K. Brown and Justin Hartley play off each other extraordinarily well. Hal Jordan and Jon Stewart aren't literally brothers like Brown and Hartley's characters on the NBC drama. They do, however, belong to the same organization and have a rather brotherly energy between them. The actors could easily transition from This is Us, which has a much smaller episode count than most broadcast dramas, to a big budget movie like Green Lantern Corps. After all, the studio needs to cast their Lanterns eventually.