With upfronts in full swing this past week, the latest show picked up by The CW—their DC Comics adaptation, “Arrow“—is gaining some pretty hefty buzz. The television network released another trailer showing Oliver Queen’s return home after a teaser trailer introducing his serious skills. When MTV News headed to the CW Upfronts, we caught up with the Green Arrow himself, Stephen Amell, who told us the series is “a real superhero show” despite the fact that none of the heroes or villains have any super powers.
“It’s pretty kick ass,” he said. “There’s a lot of action; there’s a lot of fighting. It’s close hand to hand combat and it’s aggressive. The entire pilot just keeps ramping up the entire way. You don’t get a break.”
Amell revealed that he had to endure some intense training for the role. He started by cutting gluten and dairy out of his diet before going into fight training. “It was the basics; it was like ‘wax on, wax off’ stuff,” he said. “I did a bunch of parkour, and then I got into weight training and the specific fight choreography for the pilot, and that sort of continued to ramp up as we went along.”
If you’re an avid comic-book-turned-television-show enthusiast, you may recall we saw the Green Arrow on CW’s “Smallville,” played by Justin Hartley. Amell revealed though the two actors are good friends, he hasn’t watched how Hartley developed the character alongside Superman. Regardless, “Arrow” is a new take on Oliver Queen’s alter-ego altogether.
“I think that when you see the pilot, other than in name, the characters really don’t have anything in common,” he said. “It’s very different and people will get that after about two minutes of the show.”
Another major difference between the two character adaptations is Arrow’s new costume. Colleen Atwood, who is an Oscar-winning designer and worked with the likes of Tim Burton, created the outfit with the help of Amell’s own input.
Splash Page – ‘Arrow’ Star Talks Costumes, Training And ‘Smallville’ Comparisons.
