With HBO’s ‘Lanterns,’ Poorna Jagannathan Adds Manhunter To Growing List Of Powerful TV Roles

Photo: HBO/John Johnson

India-West News Desk

LOS ANGELES, CA- Poorna Jagannathan has seen a late-career surge playing powerful women on American television, and her latest role takes that run into the DC universe. In HBO’s ‘Lanterns,’ she plays Zoe Macon, a rancher’s wife who is secretly a deadly Manhunter.

Zoe’s identity is revealed in Episode 4. In Episode 5, she is apparently killed by Lantern trainee John Stewart, played by Aaron Pierre.

But Jagannathan is leaving some mystery around her character’s fate.

“She is dead, for sure. Maybe …” she told the Los Angeles Times.

The role adds another villain to Jagannathan’s television résumé, which includes Lucky, the gangster in ‘Deli Boys,’ as well as Nalini in ‘Never Have I Ever’ and Salma in ‘Ramy.’ Her television breakthrough came with HBO’s ‘The Night Of’ in 2016.

Jagannathan counts Zoe and Lucky among her favorite TV villains. She said she might once have been intimidated by characters like them, but turning 50 brought an unexpected comfort in her own skin and a sense of belonging she had not experienced before.

The women she has played in recent years also share a particular quality: They are untethered, powerful and determined to hold on to that power.

Zoe takes that idea to an extreme. She is willing to destroy everything, including her family, rather than give up her power. She also weaponizes her femininity and carries herself with confidence and little concern about how others perceive her.

In ‘Lanterns,’ Zoe is the sole survivor of the Manhunters, an ancient, shape-shifting race created by the Guardians of the Universe as the galaxy’s first police force.

Zoe’s choice of appearance is part of her approach to power. In the predominantly white town, she takes the form of a brown Indian woman rather than trying to blend in.

Showrunner and co-creator Chris Mundy told Jagannathan, the LA Times reported, that the choice also made sense because, as an Indian woman in Nebraska, Zoe would already be an outsider and would not be part of the town’s power structure.

The idea resonated with Jagannathan’s own experience growing up.

She moved frequently as a child and said she changed languages roughly every three years. Each time, she had to quickly understand the language, gestures and social cues around her and adapt to a new environment.

That constant adjustment, she said, sometimes came at the expense of knowing herself. Acting became one way for her to explore that question and discover who she might be.

‘Lanterns,’ an eight-episode series from Mundy, combines its superhero story with a gritty crime-drama setting.

Jagannathan’s next project takes her into another unfamiliar genre. She stars in Apple TV’s ‘Nocturne,’ premiering October 30, alongside Stephen Graham, Liev Schreiber and Zazie Beetz.

She plays an overworked FBI agent brought in after law enforcement’s initial attempt to handle a crime internally goes wrong.