Grant Gustin Doesn’t Actually Run When He’s Playing The Flash

Grant Gustin plays the Flash, the Fastest Man Alive, on The CW’s DC TV show. You don’t need to be The Thinker to work out that the actor must do a lot of running, then, right? Actually, wrong. As it turns out, he’s found a way to play the Scarlet Speedster that involves as little sprinting as possible.

Gustin was a guest on Conan when he revealed to host Conan O’Brien that he’s developed a much more efficient way of filming the Flash’s running scenes over his four seasons on the series so far. When asked by O’Brien if the show meant he had to run a lot, Gustin admitted “we used to,” before they altered the process.

“Season one, we’d put me on a treadmill with a harness and then I realized on the show that it was always like a waister shot and that my legs weren’t in frame, so they had me running for no reason whatsoever. So now they frame it out and I’m literally just moving like that.”

The actor then mimed moving his arms back and forth as if running. As fans will know, Gustin’s right in that this is all you see during The Flash‘s action scenes. As the hero is supposed to move at superhuman speeds, his legs are often obscured by the yellow lightning generated by his intense speed.

Just because he doesn’t run all the time on set, though, that doesn’t mean that Gustin himself isn’t a nifty athlete. He went on to talk to Conan about how he’s often challenged to a race by his friends and even members of The Flash crew. Fortunately for him, he’s beaten his opponent every time so far.

“I’m challenged to races. Never a stranger. I’ve had a good friend of mine who, to be honest is tiny and like should have assumed that I could have beat him, that I’m faster than him and then crew members, two different crew members. I’m 3 and 0.”

While Grant Gustin doesn’t have to do too much running anymore, Barry Allen himself is having to race harder than ever to stop his latest nemesis, Clifford Devoe. In this week’s episode of The Flash, titled “Lose Yourself,” it looks like the enemies will have a particularly close encounter when The Thinker invades STAR Labs.