Why is Chas so loyal to John Constantine?
In the storyline of the comic books, issue #84 is a great origin story, when Chas invites Constantine to move in with him. But he doesn’t tell him that he lives with his mother, and he certainly doesn’t tell him that his mother’s a witch, and he goes one further and doesn’t tell him that his mother’s witch has a demon monkey familiar. Now, this gets complicated, but it’s like my favorite issue. So, Chas’ mother doesn’t let Chas leave the house. He’s an adult now. She’s killed his father. Chas’ brother killed himself for obvious reasons; his mother’s a witch, and she’s very overbearing! And she’s got a demon monkey that just torments the children.
What’s funny for those who don’t know the comic book, is his mother’s name is Queenie, and the monkey’s name is Slag, and if Queenie finds out that Chas is at the pub, she sends Slag after him, and then Slag fetches him from the pub, basically by shrieking outside of the pub and making Chas smell like a thousand toilets. So nobody wants to hang out with him, nobody wants to serve him, and he knows it’s time to go home to Mama. He can’t have any healthy relationships, and Constantine sees this, and he goes “you know what? You’re not going to have a life so long as your mother’s alive.” But he can’t go killing somebody’s mother, even though she’s magical and evil and horrible, he can’t do it. But he also knows, because he’s an occult genius, that if you kill a witch’s familiar, so dies the witch. So he seduces that demon monkey, and he flirts with that demon monkey, and he finally gets that demon monkey Slag to get close enough to him to put a hand on him. He grabs that demon monkey and he drowns it, so killing the witch, and freeing Chas up to have a life of his own. He also knows that by doing that, he’ll have a friend for life, and that he’ll have a very loyal wingman, so to speak. Now, I don’t know if we’ll ever get into that in the show, but it is safe to say that Chas and Constantine are practically childhood friends. Even before that origin story, had a punk band, and Chas was a roadie. Throughout the comics, he’s just always there for him, if Constantine needs a lift, or anything else.
I think in the show, their relationship is forged, however it came about, it’s a fact they’ve known each other for a very long time, and Chas is very privy to Constantine’s dealings, and he also realizes that there’s things in this world, or the underworld – in this realm in life – that only Constantine can fix. At any cost. And he also knows that Constantine’s a bastard, and he doesn’t want to do any of it. He’s a little bit lazy, and he’s a drunk, and he’d rather not deal with demons, but somebody has to do it. And so Chas prods him along. He makes sure that he’s fed. He makes sure that he’s sober enough to handle his business, and he also makes sure that he lives up to all of these other people that have died in his wake, for the better good. He sort of holds him to that, and makes sure that that doesn’t go neglected. Constantine is obligated by the people whose lives – human lives – he’s affected, and Chas doesn’t let John forget that, as much as John would like to forget that.
Would you like to see Chas’ origin adapted for television?
Of course! I mean, who doesn’t like a demon monkey? I don’t know if we’ll get that far, but anything is possible.
Are we going to learn how Chas survives near-death experiences like he does?
We’re going to find that out as the series progresses. We’re operating in a realm of magic. We’re operating in a realm of spells and the supernatural. There’s definitely characters in the comic books that have the ability to bring people back, and so, there is really a variety of ways that Chas could have acquired these survival skills. The question is, how long will those last? There’s a lot of questions there, and I think that that interest is just one of many reasons why this show should be engaging and interesting to audiences.
Were you ever called Chas growing up?
Yeah. I mean, I’m Charles. There were definitely people who called me Chas. What’s funny is that Chas is named after Jimi Hendrix’s tour manager, Frank William Chandler. My middle name’s William. So it’s pretty close.
Don’t miss a new episode of Constantine tonight on NBC! Our thanks to Mr. Halford for speaking with us.
