LOS ANGELES, Aug. 24 (UPI) — Jason Behr, who plays Supergirl/Kara’s (Melissa Benoist) father, Zor-El, on The CW series, said his character becomes the child when he visits his daughter on Earth. Behr joined the show in its sixth and final season, and Zor-El reaches Earth in Tuesday’s episode.
“She’s the one with knowledge, information and experience,” Behr told UPI in a phone interview. “To come to Earth, to be a complete fish out of water, he definitely looks to Kara for guidance and information.”
Kara met her father in the second episode of the season. When Lex Luthor (Jon Cryer) sent Supergirl to the Phantom Zone, she found Zor-El there.
The Phantom Zone is the hellscape where Kryptonians sent their criminals. After the explosion of the planet Krypton, Zor-El was able to survive by sending himself to the Phantom Zone.
Earth gives Kryptonians super powers, so Zor-El will have the same powers that Supergirl does when he arrives. Behr said Benois showed him how to perform flying stunts.
“She’s been doing this for a while and this is my first time,” Behr said. “I couldn’t help but belly laugh and I was grinning ear to ear. That was not just appropriate to the scene, but that was just me.”
As Zor-El experiences flight, super strength and heat vision, he gets a bit overzealous. Discovering Earth’s environmental problems, Zor-El attempts to solve the climate crisis with Kryptonian technology.
Much like Zor-El’s failed attempts to save the planet Krypton with Superman’s father Jor-El, Zor-El’s experiment causes more problems that Supergirl has to solve. Zor-El’s invention goes haywire and teaches him a valuable lesson.
“Zor-El’s hubris and ego are what blinded him on Krypton,” Behr said. “You can’t address a situation or a problem like this with hubris and ego. You have to come at it from a point of working together to fix the problem.”
Behr, 47, returned to The CW in 2020 after an eight-year break. Behr found success in his 20s in the teen series Dawson’s Creek and Roswell.
Behr said it was parenthood that made him step back from acting. He has a 7-year old son, Atticus.
“I’d had a child and really wanted to spend some time with him before getting back into all of this,” Behr said.
The first role that brought Behr back to television was The CW’s reboot of Roswell, called Roswell, New Mexico. After five Season 2 episodes in 2020, Behr joined Supergirl, which he said made him feel like a kid again.
“To put on a super suit with that S on your chest, it was a childhood dream come true,” Behr said. “I felt like I was an 8-year-old boy again.”
After Supergirl, Behr’s next project will be a behind-the-scenes role. He is producing the movie The Pearl Fisher and will not appear in it.
“It’s a true-life story about an opera singer who loses his voice and has to retrain himself to a baritone,” Behr said. “It’s never been done before in the history of that world so it’s pretty amazing.”
Supergirl airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. EDT on The CW.