The Flash Movie Cameo Mystery Solved: That Wasn’t Teddy Sears But…

The Flash movie’s Teddy Sears doppelgänger has been identified.

Coming out of early screenings of the DC movie, more than a few comic book sites did Easter egg/cameo round-ups that included Sears as a Golden Age Flash spotted during the “Chronobowl” sequence toward the end of the film, which surveyed the heroes of other timelines.

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I, too, assumed it was Sears — to a degree that I started making calls to insiders who worked on the Flash TV series, if only to (admittedly) gossip about the verrrry curious decision to feature a character from the Arrowverse that was never a speedster hero.

My phone calls caused quite a commotion, and well-placed sources on both the TV and theatrical side soon got back to me to affirm that the alleged Sears sighting was just a case of mistaken identity — that said cameo was absolutely not footage of the Flash TV series alum, but a generic Golden Age Flash representation played by “no actor.”

And though some took issue with that one insider’s language, it was, in fact, no actor.

Rather, it was the face of Jason Ballantine, an editor on the film.

As Ballantine explained in a late June Q&A with The Rough Cut that has now resurfaced:

“[The Flash director Andy Muschietti] wanted [the Golden Age Flash] as one of the characters and quite large on screen. And then DJ [John Des Jardin], our visual effects supervisor, said, ‘Well, if we’re going to have a digital character that large on screen, then it would be better to have a real face just to help with the look of the shot.’ And so I stuck my hand up, my arm nearly flew off my shoulder, to volunteer to have an opportunity to have my face stuck on the original Flash.”

Watch Ballantine’s cameo at the 00:22 mark in the Chronobowl sequence below:

When TVLine reached out to Sears as soon as the film hit theaters, even he had to remark, “I mean… that looks like my likeness.” But he clearly hadn’t done anything for the movie.

“People kept telling me that I was in the new Flash movie…,” Sears said. “I mean, I’m sleep-deprived with a newborn at home, so my memory is a little foggy. But I’m pretty sure I would have remembered shooting a major DC Studios film.

“Sadly, I’m not in this,” appearing alongside the venerable likes of Christopher Reeve’s and George Reeves’ Supermans and Adam West’s Batman, Sears added. Then, with a veritable wink: “Thanks for confirming!”

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