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DC's Legends of Tomorrow and Constantine actor Matt Ryan says reading horror comics in preparation of playing John Constantine put him off of scary movies
Matt Ryan went deep in his research for the NBC Constantine show, so much so that he can't watch horror movies like The Conjuring alone anymore
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John Constantine occupies a uniquely scary corner of the DC Universe (Justice League Dark, anyone?), and that sense of darkness may have been a bit too much for Constantine actor, Matt Ryan. Ryan starred in the Constantine NBC show for one season before reprising the role across multiple seasons of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. In addition to his live-action appearances, Ryan has voiced Constantine in various animated DC projects, like Constantine: The House of Mystery and Justice League Dark.
With so many Constantine stories rooted in horror, a fan at GalaxyCon's Nightmare Weekend asked Ryan what his favorite horror movie was. Ryan explained that researching things like exorcisms and reading early Hellblazer issues put him off from delving more into horror. "A lot of the earlier comics are pretty dark and twisted," Ryan began. "And after we started shooting [Constantine], you're thinking about all this stuff in the day, and you go home, and I'm picking up the comic book at night, and then I was like, 'I'm having nightmares, man, I'm starting to like dream about all this stuff.' So I had to put it down."
To be fair, the early issues of Hellblazer under writer Jamie Delano's pen are as absolutely horrifying as much as they are great. There are a lot of dark things that happen to innocent people in those issues, and because Hellblazer is a book starring John Constantine, things don't end well for those poor folks. Grant Morrison also wrote two early issues of Hellblazer, and I'm still haunted by them years after I first read them. And yet, Hellblazer is still my favorite comic book series.
Ryan acknowledged that he doesn't like to watch movies like The Conjuring by himself "anymore" because he "get[s] freaked out," which is fair. Every time I watch The Conjuring 2 I end up scaling the walls of my friend's living room like Spider-Man out of anxiety, but it's all fun for me! Some folks like the feeling of being stressed, while others like Matt Ryan don't need that feeling in their lives. And who am I to argue with that?
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