ARROW: Stephen Amell at NY Comic Con

One of the highlights of New York Comic Con for me this weekend was attending a panel featuring Stephen Amell. He spent an hour taking audience questions about his show, Arrow.

***Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead (Major if you haven’t seen Season 3 episode 1)***

• He started out addressing the shocking death in the season 3 premiere. Amell said that when he first read the script and was asked what he thought, his response was “are you sure?”. However, the “evil creative side of him” could appreciate where it took the story line.
• They just finished filming the crossover with The Flash. The first episode, on The Flash, is called The Flash v Arrow, but should be called Arrow v The Flash according to Amell, naturally because of “alphabetical order”. The second episode, The Brave & the Bold, Arrow 3.09, will be a literal cliffhanger, “taken to a new level”. 3.09 also will have the “biggest fight in the history of the show” and he will be shirtless for the entire fight (yay!) for “a very good reason” (um..yeeaaahhh…whatever, it works for me!). Even better, it will be a sword fight!!!
• He loved the scene with Felicity in the restaurant because he actually had a lot of meaningful dialogue (other than “Stop”, “Go”, and “Run”) and he liked bringing up the memories of when they first met at Queen Consolidated – he even went back to check that the pen color was red in original episode. The dynamic between the two will be different from now on (not surprisingly!). We’ll get Felicity’s back story in episode 5.
• Now with Sara’s death, Laurel has a new purpose. He wouldn’t confirm rumors that she becomes the Black Canary, other than saying that they never actually called Sara the “Black” Canary.
• Diggle’s massive arms will definitely not fit in the Arrow suit, and he thinks that Diggle needs a costume
• He loves villains, was attracted to Arrow because Oliver wasn’t exactly a straight forward do-gooder
• Colton Haynes is a softy – he got kind of emotional during the cast viewing of the S3 premiere at the scene when Diggle introduced his daughter to Oliver and then they hug
• He “hates” his stuntman because he’d rather be doing ALL of his students
• He wants to be on American Ninja, but would need more time to train because he’d want to go out and win
• He wants a Green Arrow videogame
• We’ll see Tommy again in episode 3.02 (Colin Donnell showed up as a surprise guest and hung out with Amell for the rest of the panel) – it’s a flashback to Hong Kong and they will run into each other there
• Amell gets very frustrated with himself when he screws up a fight scene, but doesn’t stress over his lines as much
• Great audience question: Will the show end when the flashbacks catch up to the pilot? Right now we are halfway through Oliver’s 5 years away. He’s really not sure what happens at that point, but he’s sure that the writers know where they are going
• Arrow will stay more grounded in reality than The Flash. Much of the super powers/super strength plotlines in season 2 were to help launch The Flash

Watch Arrow on Wednesdays, 8/7c on The CW.