He’s already a pretty popular guy in the world of sci-fi having been the voice of Anakin Skywalker in the Clone Wars TV series.
But if all goes well Monday night with the premiere of Timeless on NBC, Matt Lanter, a Northeast Ohio native, could find himself a permanent member of the comic con club.
Born in Massillon and raised in North Canton until he was 8, Lanter plays Wyatt Logan, a soldier who is dispatched along with a scientist and a historian to chase a villain through time who has stolen a time machine and is hellbent on disrupting the historical timeline.
As a kid, Lanter said, he enjoyed watching classic time-travel shows like Quantum Leap with his parents.
The new series, set to air locally at 10 p.m. on WKYC (Channel 3), has been heavily promoted by the network, including a flurry of prime commercials during the Olympics.
“This is pretty big,” he said. “The show just feels big. We had complete streets in Vancouver that were completely shut down and converted to look like the 1930s.”
In addition to filming a show that revolved around what would happen if the Hindenburg had landed safely that fateful May day in 1937 in Lakehurst, N.J., Lanter said, they also just wrapped another episode depicting another historic moment in the nation’s history at the Alamo.
“This is definitely a show you can watch with the whole family,” he said.
Although his family moved to Georgia while he was in elementary school, Lanter said, he still has a lot of ties to Northeast Ohio including his wife. Angela Stacy, a Mogadore High School graduate whose parents live in Akron, and his mother, who lives in Green.
When they do return to the area, he said, they always have to stop at Swensons Drive In and Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream and Yogurt.
Although he was once a bat boy for the Atlanta Braves and loves his Atlanta teams, Lanter said, he also still roots for Cleveland teams including the Indians, Cavaliers and — as painful as it can be at times — the Browns.
“It is really hard to be a Browns fan as you all, well, know,” he said.
Timeless is not Lanter’s first big TV gig. He starred as Liam on the 90210 reboot on the CW and played Geena Davis’ son on ABC’s Commander in Chief.
He has also appeared in several films such as Disaster Movie, The Roommate and Vampires Suck.
Lanter has a leading role along with Nicholas Cage in the movie USS Indianapolis: Men of Courage set to be released later this year.
This role of Bama in the movie is personal for Lanter as his grandfather, Kenley Lanter, was one of just 317 survivors of the sinking of the Navy cruiser.
Like in Timeless, the ship played a pivotal role in American history, having been torpedoed in July 1945 by a Japanese submarine as it returned from a secret mission to deliver one of two atomic bombs that eventually ended the war.
There were 1,196 crewmen onboard and 300 went down with the ship. The survivors numbered around 900, but were left stranded in shark-infested waters of the Philippine Sea with no food or water and just their life vests.
The mission was so secretive that no one reported the ship missing and by the time a U.S. aircraft happened upon the remaining survivors in the water some four days later, just 317 men were still alive.
Craig Webb can be reached at cwebb@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3547.