‘The Flash’: Danielle Nicolet on Cecile’s Expanding Powers, and Getting Targeted by Deathstorm

On this week’s episode of The Flash, titled “Death Rises”, the team finally knows who they’re facing: Deathstorm, a malevolent entity bent on eating Central City’s grief. But they don’t know what Deathstorm is, or why he’s doing it. Enter the team’s empath, Cecile Horton, played by Danielle Nicolet.

“We know the Deathstorm has haunted everyone but Cecile,” Nicolet toled Decider on the episode. “And that’s not an accident. It’s ultimately because he needs to use Cecile’s powers in order to amplify his own.”

And spoilers past this point, but it works. Deathstorm becomes even more powerful than before, and is able to possess Cecile in a terrifying sequence straight out of The Exorcist. There’s still a few more episodes of the season to go, but as Nicolet teased things are going to just get bigger and crazier as Deathstorm’s plans are unveiled — including a serious power-up for Cecile.

To find out more about that, whether she’ll be returning for Season 9, and just where Cecile and Joe’s (Jesse L. Martin) baby has been hiding, read on.

Decider: Before we talk about the episode, congratulations on the Season 9 pick up. Are you planning on returning?

Danielle Nicolet: Thank you. I’m very excited that we’re picked up for Season 9. I’m absolutely planning on returning, and yeah, I’m looking forward to it. I already have a little bit of an idea of what’s going to happen for Cecile, and I’m very excited about playing it. So I can’t wait. I’m happy to have a little break. It’s going to be nice to spend time with friends and family. But I’ll be back to work for Season 9.

It’s been reported that Jesse L. Martin is only going to be back in a recurring capacity… What does that potentially mean for Joe and Cecile?

I genuinely don’t know. I don’t know story-wise how they plan to address that. In terms of Joe and Cecile’s relationship, I certainly don’t imagine that there’s any major adjustment to it there. Joe and Cecile are a match made in heaven, so there’s not a meta or another world that can break them up.

We already knew that Deathstorm is an emotion based villain, which seems right in Cecile’s wheelhouse. But this episode we find out he’s targeting her specifically. How has this been impacting how you’ve been playing Cecile over the course of the season?

As soon as I found out about the Deathstorm storyline, I was made aware by Eric Wallace, showrunner and the world’s best boss of all bosses, what was coming and how this was going to affect Cecile. Because we know the Deathstorm has haunted everyone but Cecile. And that’s not an accident. It’s ultimately because he needs to use Cecile’s powers in order to amplify his own. So haunting her does no good, but utilizing the fact that she can feel all that grief, and all of those powers to discover that he has been working through her in order to haunt everyone else… Over the next episode or two we’re going to discover  the why, and the who, and what DeathStorm actually is. For me specifically, I knew that I was going to be playing a tremendous amount of emotionality during this stretch of this season. But also in addition to that, what’s coming in these last 4-5 episodes of the season, the finale stretch of the season, is all of that heightened emotionality that Cecile’s been experiencing all coming into play. And it’s all actually there for a reason. She’s not just walking into the room and feeling everything everyone feels and commenting on it for nothing. What we’re going to find out later on is that her powers are shifting and morphing and growing. And that is going to be Cecile’s own story into itself.

Watching you on the show over the years and particularly this week, when she is trying to take in Deathstorm, to feel all these emotions… Are those sorts of things draining for you to play? Is it fun? Is it both?

It’s oddly both. And particularly an episode like this one where I get to have the fun of playing horror movie. Like, getting possessed by Deathstorm. I am an enormous horror movie buff, as is Eric Wallace, as is Johnathan Butler who is one of our producers as well. So whenever there is fun, horror movie type stuff in an episode I am super down to play those moments. That’s really fun for me, I’m crazy about that. As an actor to play all of those emotions it really can be draining. I come home really tired. Particularly episodes where I’m doing a lot of crying. At the same time, playing everyone else’s emotions, so to speak first makes me, as an actor, stay really present and committed to what’s going on. Acting is listening and reacting and being focused outside of yourself and allowing yourself to react to that. So on that level it’s sort of exhilarating. I feel like all that training I did as an actor is for that rare occasion you are a series regular on a television show in its 8th season… You don’t just go into autopilot as an actor. I don’t ever go into autopilot. I get to always be exploring and feeling. And that part is fun.

You mentioned the scene where she’s taken over by Deathstorm… On a logistical level, what was that like to do? You doing the lines, and then they layered it afterwards? Or did they play something for you on set?

It was me doing the lines and obviously my eyes are blacked out in all of that, after the fact. I still had to drop my voice into a lower register in order to effectively get that effect on my voice that they put on in post. I’ve done a lot of voice work in my life so I think that helped me be able to do stuff like that a little more easily.

Eric has talked about treating the show as more of an ensemble this season, everybody getting their moment in the sun. Given that, and I know you said that her role is going to be changing going forward, what do you see Cecile’s role on Team Flash as right now?

When I first joined the show in Season 3 I knew that I was coming into a well oiled machine, and I was only going to be there part time. Because I had other projects I was committed to. As soon as I found out Cecile was going to have powers, that’s when I said, “Okay, where do I sit in this picture?” And I wanted to play her as someone who always comes from love but also someone who always finds this exciting and exhilarating. The same way I think anyone who’s a fan of the show, if you woke up one day and you could hear other people’s thoughts, that would be really fun. It would be something that you would enjoy. And that’s the way I wanted to really play her from the beginning, and as the seasons have progressed and her powers have shifted there’s also elements of the show that have gotten darker story-wise. And so I’ve tried to really maintain that level of investment in having powers. I still feel like she’s really excited about having and utilizing her powers. And she’s not jaded, she’s happy to be on the team. She wants to help people. To the point that she stopped being a prosecutor and started being a defense attorney. That’s the energy and the element that I continue to want her to bring to Team Flash. Not that everyone on Team Flash isn’t a fully functioning adult, but to have that quote unquote adult in the room who has that awareness that, “guys bad things can happen” and we want everyone to think things through. In the same way that Joe used to be the police chief from that level of authority, his character filled that space. When it comes to the S.T.A.R. Labs of it all, Cecile is able to fill that space. It’s a cool balance, and I hope that the audience responds well to it because I still do very much enjoy playing those powers.

There was a phrase dropped a couple of episodes back, “Blackest Night,” which is a big deal for DC Comics fans. Are we heading towards a storyline where the dead are going to be rising and returning before this season wraps up?

I can’t answer that. All I can tell you is that Eric Wallace is a big fan of the comic.

Okay, last question: who is taking care of Joe and Cecile’s baby?

I will give you a 100% real world, honest answer. We have wanted to have Jenna on the show a ton, but we have a lot of really loving, family-centric people who produce, write, and direct and star on this television show. And no one — absolutely no one — wants to bring a child under five on to the set, an unvaccinated child. And god forbid expose them to COVID. So we know that Jenna has kind of been off in the imaginary a bit, for a while. But it is truly because no one wants to take the risk of taking an unvaccinated child on set. Because we all love and value the little girl who plays Jenna very much.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

The Flash airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.