Stephen Amell looks back on his time as Oliver Queen in The CW’s Arrow and the impact the DC character has had on his life. Arrow ran for eight seasons on The CW and launched an expansive franchise that includes seven other TV series and a huge multiverse that connects to countless DC movies and shows. Arrow was such an influential series that its franchise borrowed its name — the Arrowverse. While Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen hung up the bow and arrow long before the Arrowverse concluded, Oliver was brought back to life in Crisis on Infinite Earths for one final adventure alongside his fellow superheroes and vigilantes.
In an interview with Variety, Arrow star Stephen Amell reflects on his experience playing Oliver Queen for more than seven years. Amell emphasizes his appreciation for the show, but admits that the extremely long shoots and “hypercritical people” on social media tested his patience. Filming almost all year long, the Arrow star kept thinking “How long do we have?”. Amell explains,
“The first two or three years of ‘Arrow,’ I was gripping so tight. I was white-knuckling it. The hours were long. By the time we got to the fifth episode of the first season, I’d worked more on that show than I’d ever worked on anything in my life. I was never a monster. I was never disrespectful — but I had a short fuse. And you learn as you go.
“There used to be a lot of hypercritical people, specifically with ‘Arrow.’ I would see it and almost try to police it. (…) Social media has become a zero-sum game — there is no winning. I learned the hard way.”
The CW’s DC Series Are Inherently Long Network Shows
Whereas DC shows like Peacemaker and The Penguin spend millions of dollars on eight or nine episodes, network shows like Arrow and The Flash have considerably smaller budgets and way bigger episode counts. As a result, casts and crews in shows like Arrow are attached to a single project for much longer, and shoots extend throughout the year. Add this approach to a superhero franchise where heroes have to remain active as many others pop up and increasingly bigger crossovers like Crisis on Earth X and Crisis on Infinite Earths take place in the same continuity.
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More than six years after Arrow started following Oliver Queen’s vigilante antics in Star City, the Arrowverse came to an end. The Flash‘s Grant Gustin and Supergirl‘s Melissa Benoist bid farewell to their Arrowverse heroes, and James Gunn’s DCU arrived to replace both the Arrowverse and the DCEU. Although the DCU encompasses both movies and shows, each project takes much shorter to complete, as every film and series is a much shorter part of the franchise, compared to a full season of an Arrowverse show.
Stephen Amell Left The Arrowverse At The Right Time
Stephen Amell’s Green Arrow concluded his Arrowverse story sooner than other icons like Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen and Melissa Benoist’s Supergirl, but his exit allowed the franchise to acknowledge his legacy and carry on with other characters, at least for a short while. Stephen Amell took the chance to leave the Arrowverse on a high note, before Oliver Queen’s story ran out of narrative possibilities to explore and before Amell’s exhaustion had the chance to catch up to him. Arrowverse fans can now look back and enjoy several seasons where all the actors were giving their all.
Source: Variety
Arrow
6/10
- Release Date
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2013 – 2019
- Showrunner
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Andrew Kreisberg
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Stephen Amell
Oliver Queen / Green Arrow
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David Ramsey
John Diggle / Spartan
