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‘Supergirl’s’ Chris Wood: Being a superhero isn’t Mon-El’s ‘cup of tea’

Earth’s newest alien visitor, Mon-El (Chris Wood), got off to a shaky start on his new planet. Being framed for attacking the president probably wasn’t the welcome wagon he expected, but now he’s got an even tougher obstacle to tackle: assimilating into the human race.

Being an alien on a strange new world comes with quite a bit of a learning curve, but we’ll find out whether or not Mon-El is as fast of a learner as Kara (Melissa Benoist) in Monday’s (Oct. 31) new episode.

Screener talked to Wood about Mon-El’s backstory, conquering his new superpowers and how he and Kara’s relationship will evolve in coming episodes.

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How much backstory are we going to get on Mon-El in the coming episodes?

Chris Wood: This next episode actually sort of starts off with a bit of his backstory, and we learn some more details about his journey to earth from Daxam and a bit more about who he is and what he’s about.

Should we be at all suspicious of him and his motives or should we assume he’s a good guy?

I think at this point you either have to choose to take him at his word and trust that he’s not here to hurt anybody, which he sort of proved he wasn’t by being locked in a cell when an attempt on the president was made. He’s trying to be honest, and I guess as an audience member, you’re sort of in the same boat as Kara as she tries to navigate how to handle this guy and what to do with him.

How is Mon-El coping with losing his planet and being stranded one Earth?

Well this next episode you start to see a bit more of Mon-El’s real personality because in Episode 203, the way that we meet Mon-El is in a state of severe panic. He’s in an unfamiliar place, speaking a language that we don’t really know how he knows and being confronted by people that think he’s there to cause harm when he’s not. So he’s sort of an agitated version of himself when we first meet him.

As this episode progresses, you start to see more and more of who this guy really is and his kind of fun-loving, frat-boy personality comes out and you see that he’s a bit more fun and a bit more laid back than the Mon-El who strangled Kara and threw her through a glass window.

Can we expect him to adjust well to his new powers?

This episode, Wynn ends up getting assigned to test his new Earth abilities at the DEO, so he and Mon-El spend a good chunk of the episode working on figuring out what his skills are and what his value could be to the DEO, or what his threat could be being out on the street. They want to understand him, and they want to know how he ticks and what his powers are.

He’s pretty identical to Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and Supergirl’s abilities, but as they sort of start testing him, they see he’s just a little bit more limited — like some of the heat vision… or his flight isn’t great. He’s more of a tall-building leaper than he is a consistent flyer. He’s sort of an elementary version of their abilities.

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Wynn is such a superhero fanboy. Does that fan behavior extend to Mon-El?

I think Wynn just loves this whole world. He’s like a child, like when Superman came to the DEO. Getting the assignment to sort of play with someone’s abilities and see how strong they are and see what they’re capable of, I think that’s exciting to Wynn. How well they get along will sort of be more of a surprise when the episode airs. It’s fun, and it’s goofy, and it’s enjoyable to watch.

Do you think joining the DEO and teaming up with Kara is something Mon-El is even remotely interested in?

I don’t know. I think he’s just in this fish out of water state that is actually really going to provide some good comedy in the upcoming episodes because everything is new to him. He doesn’t know anything. He speaks the language, but he doesn’t know what things are. We saw a hint of that when he didn’t know what a president was in the last episode, but you can’t quite tell if he’s serious or not. Then we find out, “Oh, this guy really doesn’t know anything about this planet.” That’s going to be a big adjustment for him.

Once he works through that, obviously Kara will sort of help mentor him and try to help him adjust to his new life here, and that involves figuring out what to do with your powers and how to control them; to fit in and ultimately get a job or do something positive with your life, which is not necessarily being a superhero. Obviously, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

What can you say about the ever-changing dynamic between Kara and Mon-El?

Yeah it didn’t start really great, did it? We saw some cultural biases come out in the last episode, which I think the producers and writers are doing a great job of integrating these real world issues and realities into this super-universe. But you see that even Supergirl has an inherent bias because her planet didn’t get along with his planet, and they both sort of distrust each other and have negative feelings about each other because of the planet they’re from.

But Kara also — the hero in her steps up and wants to take Mon-El under her wing and sort of help guide him. They hopefully will work through that and be able to become friends in spite of their differences.