[Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Titans Season 3 Episode 6, "Lady Vic."]
DC's Titans are back! The live-action comic TV series returned to HBO Max last month with an epic three-episode premiere that shook the foundations of the titular team, culminating in the loss of one of their own. Now that the Titans have temporarily left their home digs of sunny San Francisco for a darker and more dangerous Gotham, they're faced with a new threat in the enemy initially known as Red Hood (Curran Walters). Meanwhile, Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing (Brenton Thwaites) steps into a new set of responsibilities in the Bat-cave, which put him on opposing sides from his old friend and teammate and the current police commissioner of Gotham, Barbara Gordon (Savannah Welch).
Ahead of the show's premiere on HBO Max, Collider had the opportunity to speak with Thwaites about the third season. During the interview, Thwaites expanded on what excited him most about reading Season 3's scripts, how the Titans team actually shot the first few episodes out of order due to COVID, what Dick will face by returning home to Gotham, and how this week's episode proves to be a turning point in his relationship with Barbara.
Collider: I would love to start back at the beginning, when you first started getting the scripts for Season 3. What really excited you the most about the story and where the show was going?
BRENTON THWAITES: We received the scripts sporadically throughout the season, so it was really the first script that I received before performing it. And what excited me was the return to Gotham. I was excited by the fact that director Carol Banker and [showrunner] Greg Walker and Geoff Johns were collaborating in a way that would represent Gotham to be this really unsafe place. Not on face value, but in a really... meaning for it to feel unsafe. You walk down the street and you don't know whether to call the cops because maybe the cops aren't... maybe the cops are on the right side.
And so operating from a place like that was exciting, because it just poses a bunch of new challenges to Dick Grayson. Also, his returning back to his hometown as a different person. Seasons 1 and 2 were really about Dick Grayson finding out who he is and searching for that identity, and maybe slowly coming to terms with his leadership skills and his confidence. And in Season 3, Episode 1, we see him returns to Gotham and rally up the Titans and basically say, "Hey guys, this is a pretty dangerous place even for us. So we need to focus if we want to succeed here."
Speaking of the first episode, though, that opening scene in the first episode is one I love so much because it feels like such a great and fun re-introduction to the Titans. Was that one of the first scenes that you all shot together when you got back? Where did that fall in the production timeline?
THWAITES: Well it's funny, because COVID affected us in really strange ways and didn't in other strange ways, and one of the ways that it did affect us was we had to shoot [Episodes] 3 and 4 before we shot 1 and 2. And so, that kind of muddled-up continuity is always quite challenging when you're dealing with a storyline like ours. But what it did allow for was us to get comfortable in front of the camera again with [Episodes] 3 and 4. And by the time we shot 1 and 2, the scene that you're talking about, we kind of got our chemistry back. By the time we shot that scene, we were kind of in a good groove.
We definitely see Dick's past this season in a big way, especially with the whole Bat-family. He's reuniting with a lot of people from his past. How do you think those dynamics differ from the Titan family, and what has it been playing those two significant halves of Dick's character that converge this season?
THWAITES: Well, I think that he's just going to come to terms with his failures, and confront his fears. And I think one of them is returning home and failing again, the fear of failure, the fear of turning into Batman and kind of becoming a superhero that has no morals. And that has limited compassion and empathy.
Dick is not Bruce Wayne. He has a different set of rules for fighting crime. There's a little bit more morality in terms of loyalty and rules of engagement, so he's returning home with a lot of pain that he has to confront and face. And part of that pain is Barbara Gordon. He left her when he decided to leave Gotham, and he hasn't seen her since she's been in a wheelchair. So they slowly develop a professional relationship and through that, they start to learn to trust each other and slowly start to build their personal relationship.
In Season 3, we definitely see many of the parallels that are being drawn between Nightwing and Batman. And obviously, Bruce at one point steps aside. Even without seeing Dick put on the cowl, do you think he's feeling any particular pressure to live up to like the legacy of Batman, or does he really want to focus more on making the role his?
THWAITES: I mean, I think there's a bit of both. I can say that he's going to focus on making the role his, but I do think that there's the pressure to live up to that role and to at least fill the shoes that Bruce was in. There is a point halfway through the season, or maybe three-quarter way through the season, where Dick and Barbara specifically have to stop thinking like their parents. We've got to stop fighting crime and thinking like Bruce and Commissioner Gordon. And so we have a little epiphany between us and we realize that we're different. We think in different ways and we have different rules and they're not disadvantages. There are unique advantages to fighting crime and in this specific story, they are required to succeed.
Obviously a big plot point this season is Jason turning away from the Titans and becoming Red Hood. Do you think Dick is always going to believe in Jason's potential for redemption, or do you think he might be capable of making a potentially tough choice if or when that's presented?
THWAITES: It's a good question and I wish I knew the answer. That question is what is going through Dick's head the entire season. From Episode 1, finding out that, spoiler alert, that this person is who he is and, to right at the end, Episode 13, learning who the villains are and what they've done. The question for justice is maybe... Dick doesn't want to do what Bruce would do. He doesn't want to cross that line, let's say. It's twofold. He is a confident leader, he's gained his confidence in fighting crime as Nightwing. Yes, he's gaining his confidence in leadership, but there are still floors. And I think one representative of that floor is not knowing what to do with this person who he loves, who he once fought crime with, who was once a part of his family. I think that it's still unresolved. It's still a big question mark in his head of what to do.
Another character that we see a little bit of similarity for Dick with this season, at least, is Kory. They both have to deal with, I would say, difficult sibling dynamics this season. Are we going to see them bond over those problems? Or is there a possibility of the romantic connection that we saw early on in the series developing further in Season 3?
THWAITES: I think that the romance that we saw between Dick and Kory has transitioned into more of a colleague respect. We're in the friend zone, but she's a senior member of the Titans and someone who represents knowledge, a little bit more knowledge for the otherworldly, right? So she's from a different planet and she knows more about the supernatural than probably any of the Titans, save Superboy. So there really is... their relationship in Season 3 is kind of developed into more of a helping each other fight crime relationship.
The romantic side of that relationship was more or less trialed in Season 1 and Season 2. We were more like we are now, just kind of working on the side and fighting crime and trying to figure out how to be leaders to the younger Titans. And Season 3 is just more of a development of that.
I want to delve a little bit into Episode 6, which I think is a great backstory for Dick and a very significant relationship that you talked about a little bit earlier, with Barbara Gordon. We definitely see more of the history there and how complicated they are. What's it been like for you to play out such a significant dynamic for him, with Savannah [Welch]?
Episode 6 is really where they start to let their guard down on both sides, I guess. And start to learn to trust each other emotionally, opening back up to each other again for that small period of time. But it's also where the professional and the personal kind of crossover, [and] we have a professional relationship which ends on a win. And that allows us to kind of let our guard down for a little bit, which is interesting that we only do it for such a small amount of time, given that Gotham is such a crazy place and we're always in these tense situations — but the audience really does get a sense of how they truly feel for each other. And that, at a time, there was a lot of love there for each other. So it's a nice glimpse of what they were as a young couple.
Is there anything you can tease about the latter half of the season, in terms of what the journey will be for Dick and the team?
THWAITES: Well, the thing that I would tease is that we think that Red Hood is the villain. We are trying to catch Red Hood. And he's the guy that has really messed with us and played with us and tormented everyone and killed one of the Titans. And so he is really the guy that we're going after with this vengeance in this blood-thirsty kind of aggression.
But in the second half of the season, we learn that there's someone behind the mask of Red Hood, there's someone who is working alongside him, pushing him to do these things — not making him commit crimes, but forcing him into this behavior. And so, the latter half becomes more of a challenge for the Titans because we start to wonder who the person Red Hood is. Does that person still have a heart? Is there still some good in there? So it's a little bit more challenging than just taking down the bad guy. It's trying to uncover the truth and what has happened — and, in the classic Dick Grayson fashion, have some remorse and have some forgiveness for the characters who have made mistakes and who have traveled down a tricky path and maybe done things that maybe they regret and want redemption.
New episodes of Titans Season 3 premiere each Thursday on HBO Max.