Is Painkiller a Bad Guy? Jordan Calloway on 'Black Lightning' Spinoff

June 2024 · 3 minute read

Painkiller Actor Jordan Calloway Says Khalil Payne Isn't a Villain — He's Just Misunderstood

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Apr. 12 2021, Updated 9:33 p.m. ET

Source: The CW

In Season 2 of Black Lightning, we met Jennifer’s now ex-boyfriend Khalil Payne (performed through Jordan Calloway) — a high school athlete with a promising long term. But the whole thing changed for Khalil after he used to be indefinitely paralyzed by way of a stray bullet and later killed by means of Tobias.

In Season 3, Khalil was once resurrected by way of the ASA and implanted with a microchip that gave him superhuman skills and remodeled him into “Painkiller.” Although Jennifer in the long run saves the day and frees Khalil from his captors, there’s a darkish side to him that he has no choice however to acknowledge, and now that viewers have won affirmation that Black Lightning has been canceled, lovers are curious to understand what will occur along with his storyline. 

Source: Instagram

Creators not too long ago revealed that Episode 7 of Black Lightning will serve as a backdoor pilot for an upcoming spinoff within the works with Khalil Payne and his alter ego, Painkiller, because the lead. So, is Painkiller a bad guy or the hero of the spinoff?

Is Painkiller a villain?

Painkiller is the perfect example of a good guy long past bad, who later learned his errors and decided to lead them to right. Although Painkiller has a rough past, actor Jordan Calloway desires audience to seem beyond his rough external. 

He defined, "With Black Lightning, we have more of a familial aspect that we're dealing with. In [the Painkiller pilot], you have that as well. But what I like [is] Painkiller dives into the psyche of a damaged Black man. You get to see, it's kind of the setup of if you were on an island with the person that you hated the most, how would you survive?”

Source: The CW

He added, “That's what I love about Painkiller, where you have Khalil dealing with his other half of himself, the yin and the yang aspect of it. You get to see this journey where both of them are going to have to come to an understanding of one another. They don't get to just get rid of the other.”

Jordan previously described his character as an “anti-hero,” which means that Painkiller may not be entirely villainous in the upcoming spinoff. Although his character has drastically evolved over the last two seasons, the Black Lightning star made it clear that he has no problem playing the bad guy. 

Source: The CW

He explained sarcastically, “I omit enjoying the good guy. It is so arduous playing the bad guy and having to beat everybody up. I mean being so robust, having some a part of abs, and then appearing the ones abs off. Getting to put child oil on mentioned abs is so laborious (laughs). Is this paintings?”

Jordan added, “It’s a blast, I am getting to coach with the Stunts workforce, and stunt coordinator Danny Le Boyer. Special shout out to my stunt double, Nikolas Pelekai. It’s a lot of amusing taking part in the bad guy, and the episode where I am preventing such a lot of different guys all through the ASA training scene, we had two hours to movie that. We needed to do 10 different martial arts and we knocked it out of the park. So, I'm loving taking part in Painkiller, shout out to the infant oil and the CGI.”

You can catch new episodes of the final season of Black Lighting Mondays on the CW at 9 p.m. EST.

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