Harry Lennix says Zack Snyder was 'ahead of the curve' by introducing diverse heroes that were cut from the 2017 theatrical cut of 'Justice League'

• Warning: There are spoilers ahead for "Zack Snyder's Justice League."
• Zack Snyder always wanted to have a diverse group of heroes in his "Justice League."
• WB still didn't allow him to add a third Black hero, Green Lantern, into his "Snyder cut."

"Zack Snyder's Justice League," now streaming on HBO Max, restores three diverse superheroes that were either completely cut or heavily pared down from the original 2017 theatrical version of the movie.

Harry Lennix told Insider he was cleared to film for the original "Justice League" back in 2016 before he was told he was getting cut.

"Because of the two-hour demand that the movie be cut down, my character got lost in the shuffle," Lennix told Insider.

In the new film, Lennix is back and reveals himself as the Martian Manhunter twice in the movie. At the time, Lennix had no idea Snyder planned to make him a hero.

Zheng Kai's role as a member of Star Labs was also cut. In the comics, the character goes on to become a superhero named The Atom.

Ray Fisher's role as Victor Stone/Cyborg was also pared down because of the studio mandate. He's now an integral part of the movie and even gets an extended origin story, which plays like a solo film worked into the confines of the larger "Justice League" plot.

Snyder told Deadline the film was supposed to set up a solo Cyborg movie.

"I'm not surprised that Zack is ahead of the curve in many ways," Lennix said, adding that the Wachowski siblings, who he worked with on "The Matrix" sequels, were also pushing to put more diversity on-screen in their films.

"Knowing how many Black people love these characters in the DCEU - how I loved Superman growing up and Batman and these characters - to actually now be able to see oneself represented is transformative," Lennix continued. "It, in many ways, becomes determinative because you can associate yourself in a physical form with something that had previously been denied or in some way withheld from our demographic."

While Martian Manhunter, Ryan Choi, and Cyborg's roles have been restored in the "Snyder cut," there's one more Black superhero Snyder wasn't able to work in - John Stewart's Green Lantern.

Warner Bros. wouldn't allow it.

"One of the rules of making the 'Snyder cut' was that the studio said, 'No shooting of any kind.' And then I, of course, shot stuff anyway because I was like suddenly, 'Wait. There's rules now on the Snyder cut?... That seems unfair,'" Snyder told Sean O'Connell, Jake Hamilton, and Kevin McCarthy of the ReelBlend podcast.

"We did have a Green Lantern scene in the movie that the studio asked me to take out that I did also shoot here in the driveway with an amazing actor who was going to play John Stewart," Snyder added. "Then the studio, when they saw the movie, and they saw that I had done every single thing that they had asked me not to do, we had come to a bit of a loggerhead."

There are many versions of the Green Lantern. Stewart was the first African American DC Comics superhero.

Snyder said he didn't want to be "subversive and rude" in going against the studio's asks, but he wanted to stay true to what he promised fans. If he was going to make his vision for the film a reality, he didn't want to compromise.

In an interview with Esquire, Snyder said he went as far as to tell the studio he would quit if they removed Green Lantern from his film.

The Green Lantern scene was supposed to play at the very end of the film. He was supposed to be the hero that Bruce Wayne interacted with, not the Martian Manhunter.

When the studio asked him to remove Green Lantern, part of Snyder's compromise was to add more of Martian Manhunter into the movie.

"In the negotiation, we got this Batman vs. Joker scene out of it and then we also, I was like, 'Look, I'm not going to take a person of color out of the movie. Can I at least put Martian Manhunter now at the end of the movie?'"

Lennix told Insider he returned to film that final scene in October 2020 from a green screen in New York.

"That's why I had to reshoot that scene because the original version we had shot Ben's [Affleck] side in England," Snyder told the ReelBlend podcast. "We just didn't have a Green Lantern. It was green light all over [Ben] so I couldn't use it."

At a time when Hollywood has been challenged to have more representation on screen, Snyder was already asking to make those inroads.

"Zack Snyder's Justice League" is streaming now on HBO Max. You can read our review here.