ew.com – At this point, Caity Lotz’s Sara Lance has died, been resurrected, been possessed by a time demon, and formed a Beebo, but she’ll tackle a brand new frontier in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow‘s fifth season: a superpower.

“Sara will get a magical illness, which will turn into a superpower,” says Lotz, who appears on the cover of this month’s Entertainment Weekly. “She’ll learn how to make it a superhero power, which won’t necessarily be a good thing. It’s going to come with its challenges for sure.”

Up until now, Sara, who trained with the League of Assassins, has mostly been known for her martial arts prowess, so Lotz is ecstatic about this latest twist. “I’m just really excited about having a superpower. I’m on a superhero show, and then all my friends are like, ‘What’s your power?’ I’m like, ‘I’m really good at martial arts.’ They’re like, ‘That’s not a power.’ ‘Dammit, you’re right. It’s not a power.’ So finally I get a power,” she says. “It’s something where it’s kind of an illness and she’s going to learn how to turn it into something positive, which I think is really cool — taking a setback, something that’s difficult and challenging, and being able to kind of create alchemy with that and turn it into a positive. I think the negative part of the power [will affect] her personal life [more].”

For Lotz, change has been one of the constants of playing Sara because the character has evolved significantly from when she was first introduced in Arrow season 2 as, essentially, the female version of the forever brooding Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). “I thought I was bringing over the exact same character [from Arrow to Legends]. I was like, ‘Sara would never say that.’ But then it was like, ‘Oh, this is a different version of Sara. A way more lighthearted version,’” says Lotz. “It was a difficult balance at first to have it still be her and yet fit the new show.” She continues, “It’s really fun. I like this new version of her. It’s fun to play the comedy instead of being so dark and tortured all of the time. This Sara gets to have a lot more fun.”

In somewhat related news: In season 5, Sara and her girlfriend Ava (Jes Macallan) will be living together on the Waverider, “which is going to prove to be very difficult for Sara,” says Lotz. “It’s going to be hard for her to get any personal time, but also a good opportunity for growth in the Avalance relationship.”

Ava will also experience some personal growth in season 5 because she’s currently unemployed. In the wake of the feel-good season 4 finale, the Time Bureau was shuttered, meaning the Legends are now the timeline’s last line of defense and the former director must figure out what comes next for her.

“She’s like a showrunner who enters hiatus and it’s just like, ‘Ahh, I don’t know what to do by myself,’ and that’s scary,” says executive producer Phil Klemmer, with EP Keto Shimizu adding, “Part of her character is figuring out how she fits on the Waverider. We have some great stories with her, and we’ll continue to watch her evolution. She’s a character we love so much.” Shimizu is looking forward to exploring how Ava “becomes ingrained in this family structure, not just through Sara but through her friendships with all of the other characters. She’s this great, complicated person that everyone can have their own friendship with on the ship.”

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– Studio Photoshoots > 2019 > 001
– Magazine Scans > 2019 > Entertainment Weekly Magazine – August 2019
– Screen Captures > Photoshoots > Entertainment Weekly Magazine – 2019