The creative team behind the DC TV universe aren't giving up hope of bringing back Matt Ryan as the chain-smoking occultist Constantine.

Ryan originally played the DC Comics hero in his own short-lived NBC series, which was cancelled after just one season. But that wasn't the end of Constantine!

The actor later jumped networks for a one-off Arrow cameo and is returning to voice Constantine in his own DC TV animated series — but what about another live-action comeback?

The CW

(Constantine: The Animated Series)

At the TCA press tour this week, Legends of Tomorrow showrunner Phil Klemmer told reporters that he is "actively campaigning" DC entertainment to get Constantine on his squad as the show delves deeper into dark magic.

"This is a much more supernatural, spooky vibe this season," he revealed (via CBR). "We're dealing more with magic. It's less real-world bad guys."

Late last year, Matt Ryan told Digital Spy that he's very keen to bring back Constantine in live action to complement the upcoming animated spinoff.

The CW

"I'd be up for playing him again if an opportunity came along," Ryan told us. "I felt that when the show got cancelled, there was a little bit of unfinished business – that we were just getting started, and finding what the tone and the pace of the show was.

"To turn up on Arrow was a great joy and then when they asked me to do Justice League Dark, the animation [film], to do him in a different medium as well, it was great.

"I think it's probably one of the greatest literary characters of the last century. He's so much fun to play, someone so dark and twisted but who has this amazing humour as well. So it's something that I'm always interested in doing.

"There's all these rumours going around that he'll turn up on some of the other DC shows – I don't know. But John's such a character, you could drop him into any of those universes and he'd hold his own."

The CW

The Legends could certainly use Constantine's help this season, seeing as they'll be clashing with Damien Darhk, an ultra-powerful Gorilla Grodd and their own former leader Rip Hunter.

DC's Legends of Tomorrow returns on Tuesday, October 10 on The CW in the US. In the UK, the series airs on Sky1.

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