Video Interview: John Barrowman On Malcolm’s Plans & Manipulations

It looks as if John Barrowman‘s Malcolm Merlyn might be back in Starling City tonight with beloved daughter Thea, in a new episode of Arrow that’s airing at 8PM on The CW. The character who was once known as simply “The Well Dressed Man” is a series regular in Season 3, which means we’ll hopefully be seeing a lot more of him.

We spoke with Mr. Barrowman earlier this month at the Vancouver set of Arrow to get some intel from Mr. Barrowman about what’s coming up. We’ll be seeing him in “The Magician,” of course, including what many are expecting to be a confrontation between Oliver and Malcolm. But what else is coming up? And does Malcolm fear vengeance, especially with Ra’s al Ghul lurking?

“Malcolm is someone who is not stupid,” Barrowman assured us. “He knows what’s going on. He probably has people watching and his information being fed back to him. There is a sense of worry concern, not fear. However there might be moments when you look at Malcolm where you might look at Malcolm and you might see something and go oh my god he looks scared. But is he really? Or is just manipulating the situation? I think he’s concerned about Ra’s being here but he’s not stupid. He will try to figure a way to protect himself and hopefully those around him,” he said.

Especially in light of his new relationship with his daughter, Malcolm will be adding more emotional manipulation to his quiver. “I think Malcolm is learning about emotional manipulation also because he’s never been able to tell somebody really how he feels,” Barrowman told us on his character’s interactions. “He’s always done it in an off the cuff, backhanded way. But he’s always been honest. As brutal as it may be at times, I think he’s probably one of the most honest people on the show. That’s my opinion. Because he tells it like it is. He tells the truth. Not everybody likes to hear the truth. But I think his emotional manipulation is more straight forward, rather than it being to manipulate. No it’s straightforward in order to manipulate. It really is. Some people would lie and tell fibs about stuff but in a particular scene that is coming up, there’s straightforward down the line truth and the person is overwhelmed by what they’re hearing,” he teased.

Season 3 brings Brandon Routh’s Ray Palmer to Starling as someone who wants to improve the place; surely in a less destructive way than Malcolm tried in Season 1. Are there any similarities between their plans? “Malcolm continually says that he loves Starling City but who knows if his plans are that big or if they’re just focused on Thea and Oliver. It’s something that I don’t want to speculate on. So we’ll see what Ray’s plans are,” Barrowman said.

And finally, what’s coming up? “We’re just wrapping up 3×09 and I have one sequence left tonight to film in that and that’s at midnight I’m doing it. The one thing, we’re doing 310 next. I haven’t read it yet. I don’t read them till I’m done. All I’ll say, to give you a little hint, it’s going to be very cold, what we’re doing tonight, and wet and high up,” he teased.

You can see our entire interview with Mr. Barrowman with many more spoiler details and teases below. Enjoy, and don’t miss tonight’s episode! Official images from “The Magician” can be found here.