Just over a week after Nicole Ari Parker joined the cast of HBO’s Lanterns as John Stewart‘s mother, an actor has been found to play the father of the fan-favorite Green Lantern.
Filming is currently underway on the first season of Lanterns, which will consist of eight episodes. Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler are set to co-lead the hotly-anticipated DC Universe series as John Stewart and Hal Jordan, respectively. The two are arguably the most well-known characters to have served in the Green Lantern Corps.
Who is playing John Stewart’s father in Lanterns?
According to Deadline, J. Alphonse Nicholson has been tapped for a key recurring role in Lanterns as the young version of John Senior, implying that the HBO drama series will incorporate flashbacks into its narrative.
Nicholson is perhaps best known for his series regular role of Lil’ Murda on the Starz drama series P-Valley. His other credits include the FX miniseries Clipped, Hulu’s White Men Can’t Jump remake, the Bryan Stevenson biopic Just Mercy, and the Netflix sci-fi flick They Cloned Tyrone. The actor was also in one episode of Marvel Television’s Luke Cage, meaning that he will soon be one of the few actors to have appeared in both the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Universe.
According to the series synopsis, Lanterns follows “Hal Jordan, a legend among the space police force known as the Green Lanterns” as he reluctantly mentors a younger Green Lantern, John Stewart, when the two intergalactic cops get “drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery as they investigate a murder in the American heartland.”
The creative team for Lanterns consists of Damon Lindelof, Tom King, and Chris Mundy, who also serves as showrunner for the series. Kelly Macdonald, Garrett Dillahunt, Poorna Jagannathan, Jason Ritter, and Ulrich Thomsen round out the ensemble of actors that have so far been announced for the DCU show. While most are playing original characters created for Lanterns, Thomsen is set to portray the iconic Green Lantern villain Sinestro.
Lanterns is expected to debut on HBO in 2026.
