Lanterns’ Aaron Pierre Says John Stewart Is a ‘Raging Sea’ Inside: ‘I Feel Very Seen by John’

Ahead of the HBO series’ debut, Aaron Pierre opened up about the deeply personal connection behind his portrayal of John Stewart — and why the Green Lantern’s controlled exterior may be hiding a storm underneath.

There is a lot going on beneath the surface of Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart.

And according to Pierre, that is exactly the point.

Ahead of the premiere of HBO’s Lanterns, Pierre spoke about his connection to the iconic Green Lantern during a press conference attended by The Nerd Wire, describing John as a character who makes him feel personally understood.

“I feel very seen when I read John,” Pierre said.

For Pierre, John’s defining contradiction is the enormous divide between what he allows the world to see and what is happening internally.

“John, to me, is somebody who is a raging sea internally,” Pierre explained. “Externally, he’s a gentleman. He’s precise, he’s accurate, he’s intentional, he’s clean.”

Inside, however, it is an entirely different story.

“He’s a raging sea. He’s a tornado. He’s a volcano.”

That image offers an especially interesting window into the version of John Stewart audiences are about to meet in Lanterns. This is not simply a character defined by discipline or composure. Pierre sees that control almost as a containment system — a carefully maintained exterior keeping something much more turbulent underneath.

He offered another analogy to explain it.

Pierre compared John to walking into somebody’s spotless house, only to eventually discover the one room where everything has been shoved out of sight.

It may look immaculate from the outside.

Open the wrong door, however, and there is chaos.

Aaron Pierre Found Pieces of Himself in John Stewart

Pierre’s connection to John is not purely intellectual.

While discussing his preparation for the role, the actor acknowledged that at a certain point, research can only take a performance so far. To make a character feel authentic, he said, an actor ultimately has to bring some of their own truth with them.

For Pierre, part of that truth comes from understanding what it means to experience emotions intensely while learning how to navigate them.

“I’ve had my fair share of learning to navigate my experiences as somebody who does feel things very heavily and deeply,” Pierre said.

That personal connection appears to have shaped the way he approached John.

Earlier in the conversation, Pierre described the character as someone who allows people to “feel seen,” “heard,” “understood,” and “respected,” while reflecting on the responsibility he felt stepping into the role.

Rather than simply trying to recreate a version of John Stewart that already existed on the page, Pierre said he had to allow himself to become vulnerable enough to bring his own experiences into the character.

Otherwise, he explained, there is no authenticity — and nothing for an audience to connect with.

It is why his simplest statement about John may ultimately say the most.

“So I feel very seen by John.”

That Could Be the Key to Lanterns’ John Stewart

Green Lantern stories can easily become conversations about power rings, constructs, alien worlds and the mythology of the Corps.

Pierre is talking about something much smaller — and potentially much more important.

A man who appears extraordinarily controlled because there is an extraordinary amount to control.

That distinction could become central to Lanterns, particularly as the series pairs the new recruit John Stewart with veteran Lantern Hal Jordan, played by Kyle Chandler.

HBO describes the pair as two intergalactic cops who become drawn into a dark, Earth-based mystery with cosmic ties while investigating a murder in the American heartland. The eight-episode series debuts Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and HBO Max.

But before audiences see what John Stewart can do with a Green Lantern ring, Pierre is making one thing very clear:

The most complicated thing about this Lantern may be everything happening before he ever lets anyone see it.

The Nerd Wire attended the Lanterns press conference and captured the comments included in this story.