'Stargirl:' Christopher James Baker reveals how his son helped him bring Brainwave's telekinesis to life
In honor of the two-part focus on the Henry Kings of 'Stargirl,' the man behind Henry King Sr — Christopher James Baker — took over the 'Stargirl' Instagram page today. As part of that, he had a conversation with his fellow ISA member — Neil Jackson, who plays Icicle on the show. Baker offered some insight into his own acting process when it comes to Brainwave's telekinesis.
One of Brainwave's moves was in fact inspired by his son, James. Christopher James Baker and Neil Jackson lived together while shooting in Atlanta, and Baker would share stories of his family — including one about how Baker's son believes Brainwave would act. "A year ago, before the show was made or anything, he knew that I was playing a supervillain called Brainwave," Christopher Baker recounts. "James would just run around the house, and he'd take up a really strong stance, and he'd put his hand like this," says Baker, putting his palm in profile in front of his face, "and go 'BRAINWAVE!' He just ran around doing that all the time."
"When we were filming — this is a bit of an Easter Egg — in the scenes, in the episode that just aired," he said, referring to Episode 9 'Brainwave' when Brainwave's son is watching his father on VHS tapes, describing how his powers originated. "I was always looking the whole way to see if there was any way to get a 'Brainwave' gesture into it, and I managed to justify just doing that." Neil Jackson, of course, recognized "the Brainwave movement" as soon as he saw it on TV.
Baker also talked about what it was like portraying telekinesis on his very first show involving CGI, admitting it was a little weird at first, but then that it reminded him of doing a theater show. "You walk out and you stand out there, looking at a bank of people, and imaging that you're actually looking at something different, and buy into that reality," he said, detailing how the VFX team would describe what he needed to imagine before enacting it.
Baker later talked about his particular style of telekinetic portrayal. In response to Neil Jackon's comment that Brainwave's movements seemed to be more minimalist, Baker said, "It was. It was something that I discussed with Geoff (Johns, Geof Johns, the creator of 'Stargirl) quite a bit, and he agreed with, that I felt like I've seen the whole — we've seen a lot of people, like, using hands or something to direct blasts or things. That's really cool, and it really works too, but I thought if he's been doing this for so long, and he's so good at it, that I just wanted it to be as simple as thinking about it, and it happens." He continues, "That was a really conscious thing, and Geoff was into that idea too, that it would just be he was so contained, everything would just be focused, and inside."
You can watch the entire conversation between Christoper James Baker and Neil Jackson here. With Brainwave just waking up from a coma, you can see his next appearance on the next episode of 'Stargirl,' which airs on DC Universe on July 20, and on the CW on July 21.