My alter ego is this guy talking in front of the camera, kind of being professional.

Are you not normally?

No, I'm not. I'm not either. I'm trying to be professional.

No, I'm not professional. I just I just mean I'm kind of, you know, I'm a little silly.

here in the Young Hollywood studio with Brandon Routh. Good to see you.

Nice to see you.

Been a long time.

It has.

You're roots from Iowa. Were you actually a like are you a farm boy or are you

Well, I mean, I'm not.

Is that such a stigma? Saying you're from Iowa are you from like Did you stereotype me?

I grew up near a farm. Yeah. Um a couple blocks away from a cornfield. So I did run through cornfields.

You did? Was it like, did you do the field of dreams thing when you were younger?

No.

Oh. I thought it was just me. I grew up in a small town. just do that. Right. But I saw an Instagram post of your parents. You went to tea with them. I think I don't know how long ago it was. But are they so proud?

They're very proud. Yes, you can't My dad every day wears a Superman belt buckle.

Does he Are you joking or are you serious?

I'm serious.

Really?

I think pretty much every in his casual outfits he's always wearing his Superman belt buckle. He's rocking it.

And does he walk around town and be like, my son?

Yeah, well, I think he's told everybody now in our small town, so I don't think anybody.

Everybody's like, we get it. There's nobody that doesn't know. That's right. We've seen it. He's got to branch out into towns now.

Yeah. He does.

So did he have it before or no? He was always a Superman fan or no?

Uh just, you know, when I got the role. Right.

Okay, so now new superhero of sorts. Although this is not a new character for you. Uh it's uh yeah, it's actually

Yeah. New series, not a new character.

Yeah. So for people who don't know the Atom, he's kind of like an alter ego. He can shrink he's like a an inventor billionaire.

Yes, uh physicist

Yeah. Uh in life that would you prefer to be a billionaire inventor? Yeah. Or have that that power to sort of you know, be shrink into Atom size.

Gee, I don't know. My thinking is that if I was a billionaire inventor I would just create the I would just become Atom. I would just create it. But on the flip side if you could actually do that you'd be probably the only person on the planet with superpowers and you'd become a billionaire.

Right. Well, you could I mean, save people and get you could steal things I guess, but that wouldn't be the way to do it. That would be a lot of fun. I'd give up a billion bucks for that.

My my my cohorts, my fellow cohorts, Captain Cold and Heat Wave who are part of the Legends team would probably like that ability.

Do you guys because there's eight superheroes in the series. Do you have any envy over any of the other characters? Is there one in particular that you kind of go, that one's kind of cool.

I think that Firestorm looks amazing. The CG and when he flames out and whatever it's called. I can't remember what it's called. And then he like throws the flames and just looks so cool.

He's a rager?

Yeah. He gets he gets upset, he gets nuclear. Lights things on fire.

It's crazy how you're kind of no stranger to, you know, wearing a suit. Right. You're used to that. I read that you said, um, that your suit, this suit that you put on for the show, it's when it's hot, it makes you hotter and when it's cold, it makes you colder. And I feel like that's every girl's worst nightmare. I feel like every girl is always way too hot or way too cold, so you can relate to the sort of.

I guess so. Yeah. I guess so. The suit holds in heat when it's hot in a warm room like this. And then when it's cold, it's just it's like Spandex uh leotard essentially.

So this particular role, obviously, you know, you audition for it originally a couple years ago.

They approached me about the character and they came to me with this role, not just because I played a superhero, but because they thought I could be funny. I was like, okay, well, you've you've sold me because I want to do more comedy.

So if Ray Palmer is an alter ego of or the Atom is an alter ego of Ray Palmer, what do you think your alter ego is?

My alter ego is this guy talking in front of the camera, kind of being professional.

Are you not normally?

No, I'm not.

I'm not either. I'm trying to be professional.

No, I'm not professional. I just I just mean I'm kind of, you know, I'm I'm a little silly.

I know you have to really keep in shape for this role. It's very, you know, Yes. Unforgiving, shall we say. Um, and you said cardio is overrated. Oh, yeah. Please give us a tip.

Well, diet is like 90% of weight loss and maintaining the weight that you want. Often times what happens is if you run a mile, you run a marathon, um, based on our background of running to survive and not having knowing when we're going to have food the next meal, our bodies will then store that food. So if you're running on a treadmill, it's like your body's like, I'm running from a tiger. I don't know when I'm going to eat again. I'm going to slow down my metabolism because I need to hold on to this so I can be fueled later. So, um, you can run yourself into a slow metabolism.

So you've just justified my laziness. You know, I I I I want to do as little I want to do as little work as possible.

Being laziness is a real can be a real positive if you find ways to maximize your time.

Can I just give a shout out to your wife for a second?

Of course, please.

I was a huge Dexter fan.

Ah, yes.

Huge Dexter fan. Courtney Ford, she's gorgeous. Absolutely. Where did you guys meet?

We met at at Lucky Strike. I was bartending for her brother who was having his wedding rehearsal dinner after party. They had so many people they had an after party. And so that's where we met.

Wow. Met her and her whole family. Was it instant? I know I'm getting. I mean, there was a connection. Absolutely. Instantaneously. What's your best drink, by the way? What are you best at making?

Oh, jeez. I don't make any drinks anymore.

And 400 Days, I want to talk about, um, wearing a suit again. Astronaut. Yes. The first time. Do you just demand to wear suits in whatever role you play?

No, and you know, if it's not like some kind of supersuit or spacesuit, it's like a traditional suit.

True. And you wear you wear that well, too, I should say.

Well, thank you. It's it's it's part of my uniform.

If you're so used to being so confined, do you go home and just like what do you wearing at home? You just like Is it the ripped t-shirt and

You know, it's it's just comfy clothes. Or is it just pajama pants? Everybody likes pajama pants. Everybody come on. Everybody wears a pajama pants when they go.

Yeah, the girl wears the top and then the guy wears the bottom. You could do that. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, you get you get dressed up all the time. You don't always be like that. Well, you go see Batman vs. Superman and what do you think of Ben Affleck playing

I think he'll do a nice job. I'm excited to see it. Yeah, see what they do with it.

I never understand the Batman versus Superman thing. I've always said that they should like work together, and I'm sure that's what will happen at the end of the movie, but it's dramatic. It's people are going to see it. They want to know why Superman's fighting Batman and And they all just want to find out how Ben does in that role. Anyway, thank you for coming in.