‘The Flash’ Star John Wesley Shipp Shares How He Found Out He’s Playing Jay Garrick After Henry Allen’s Death

John Wesley Shipp didn’t expect that he’s going to play Jay Garrick in Season 3 of “The Flash.” In fact, the actor — who originally played Henry Allen on the CW series — had no idea that he’s playing Earth-3 Flash until a costume fitting.

“I went up to do the last four episodes of the show, last season, figuring that Henry Allen was drawing to a close,” Shipp said during a recent interview with Collider. “What I didn’t know was that I would be coming back.”

“It was really comical,” he recalled. “I was at a costume fitting and I was trying on a shredded costume and I was like, ‘Wow, what’s this?!’ And (costume designer) Kate [Main] said, ‘Well, of course, you’ll be fitted for the iron mask separately.’ And I said, ‘The iron mask?’ And she said, ‘You don’t know?! You didn’t hear it from me!’”

Unbeknown to Shipp at the time, the man in the iron mask was actually Jay, and he only found out about it while hanging out with Grant Gustin (Barry Allen) and Jesse L. Martin (Joe West) on set.

“They said, ‘So, did you hear what you’re doing this season?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I’m the man in the iron mask. Go figure!’” Shipp — who played the Scarlet Speedster in the 1990s “The Flash” TV series — told the website. “And they paused and said, ‘Yeah. That’s all you know?’ And I was like, ‘There’s more?’ And they said, ‘You’re Jay Garrick, man!’ And I was like, ‘Get out of town! You’re kidding!’”

While Shipp is thrilled to be playing a speedster again, he revealed to IGN that he does miss playing Henry Allen.

“I admit I miss, I have to say, the closeness … between me and Grant as Henry and Barry,” the actor said. “There was just warmth and kindness and good parenting that was going on in those scenes. [But] that’s gone. What I get now is I get to bump up against Grant’s speedster as a speedster.”

Even though it seems that Shipp is having more fun portraying Jay than Henry, it doesn’t mean that his new role doesn’t come with any challenges.

In an interview with Variety after the Season 2 finale, Shipp said that the major challenge for him in playing Jay Garrick is making sure that he’s different from Henry.

“It’s got to be clear to everyone, including Barry, that this is not Henry,” Shipp said of his Season 3 role. “So the most important thing for me was ‘how am I gonna differentiate the man that comes out of the iron mask from Henry Allen? In what ways is he different? In what ways is he the same?’”

“The Flash” Season 3, Episode 10 airs on Tuesday, Jan. 24, at 8 p.m. EST on The CW.