Camrus Johnson may have officially suited up as Batwing on “Batwoman” last year, but this week, he’s wearing both his super suit and his director’s cap. And he’s pretty sure he couldn’t have gotten a better episode to start with.
The 11th episode of Season 3, titled “Broken Toys,” sees the return of Marquis Jet (Nick Creegan), back to full health thanks to Poison Ivy’s antics last week — and he’s ready to destroy Batwoman and her crew. You can watch an exclusive sneak peek of his return in the video above.
Between directing Gotham’s new age Joker, Batwoman herself (and all her family drama), and Mary Hamilton (Nicole Kang) — who is back to her normal self and grappling with what she’s done — we had to ask: is there anything Johnson didn’t get to do in his directorial debut?
“Juggle. That’s about it,” Johnson joked with TheWrap. “No, that’s not true. I was pretty much for juggling the entire episode. No, it was great. It’s like the writers of this episode [Natalie Abrams, Chad Fiveash and James Stoteraux], they really put their foot in this episode. It’s crazy. Because when I read it, I was like, ‘Oh, this is the perfect script for me.’ Like, there’s all the things that I want to do. It’s funny, and it’s fun, and it’s action packed, and it’s sexy. And it’s cool. And it’s dark. There’s so many great moments in it. And I really got to play the entire episode.”
Of course, as tends to happen, things did go wrong. As Johnson explained, one of his first days on the episode involved using a crane for several shots — but then the crane broke. What ensued was a scramble to rearrange shooting orders and schedules to make sure they got what they needed, and on time. It was stressful, but Johnson loved it.
“This sounds dark in a way, but I like seeing my crew panicking,” Johnson said. “I like them being like, ‘Oh, crap, what are we gonna do? What are we going to do?’ Because then it’s like, OK, now it’s my job to calm everyone down. It’s my job to say, ‘There’s got to be an answer. There’s got to be a way and we’ll get there. We’ll figure it out.’
“And not only did we do it, but we finished the day on time. And our producing director Holly Dale, who was really — she was there with me the first half to really oversee and make sure things are going well. She walked up to me and she said, you realize that if you actually complete this day on time, you’ll be a hero. And when I did it, she walked up to me and said, Congratulations, you’re a real director, and she gave me a hug. And ever since then, I was like, this episode’s gonna be great.”
“Batwoman” airs on Wednesday nights at 9/8c on The CW.