Stephen Amell di Arrow, intervista esclusiva. Arrivano gli episodi inediti

Qui Mediaset ha intervistato in esclusiva Stephen Amell in occasione dell’arrivo degli episodi inediti della 3° stagione di “Arrow”, in versione originale sottotitolati su Premium Action dal 9 febbraio (ogni lunedì in prima serata). Le puntate in prima tv free doppiate sono in onda su Italia 1 ogni martedì sera.

What is different about Oliver Queen in Season Three of Arrow?
“We find a happy Oliver in the premiere of Season Three. He’s a happy, smiling Oliver Queen. Did you see me smile in the preview for Season Three? It’s like, ‘Who is that?’ It was weird to shoot because we don’t really know how Oliver smiles. The director for the premiere episode said to me, “Give me a smile! Erm… Give me a bigger smile. No, that’s too big, give me less.” We had to find the smile”.

What can you tell us about Oliver’s development in Season Three?
“We find a happy Oliver, but that comes at a price. His attempt to insert some normalcy into his life doesn’t go well. And in our premiere, Oliver literally sees a vision of himself that scares the hell out of him – and that colours the entire season. This will make sense when you see the premiere. I assure you. Last year, I was asked, “Describe the season premiere in one word.” And I said, “Trees.” Everyone was like, “What?” And then you saw the season premiere and I’m in a 60-foot tree. Likewise, the ‘vision’ stuff will make more sense when the season premieres. I promise”.

At the start of Season Three, Oliver seems to be under the delusion that he can have a normal life…
“Delusion is the correct word”.

How long does the delusion last?
“I think it will last for about twenty minutes. This will be an interesting year. If you go back and watch the first episode of Season Two, all of the themes are really touched upon in that episode. The same is true of the pilot. When you watch the first episode of Season Three, all of the themes echo throughout the season. Delusion is definitely the right word!”.

What can you tell us about Oliver’s love life in Season Three?
“There’s one lady in Oliver’s life in Season Three. Just one. And that woman is Felicity Smoak. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are together. Was he misleading her? Was it a misdirection? Was it a ploy? Was it a play? We resolve all of that stuff in the premiere, fully and absolutely. You get an abundantly clear picture of how they both feel about one another. It doesn’t mean they’re going to be together, though”.

Is Oliver’s romantic connection to Sara and Laurel Lance officially over?
“The ship has sailed on those romances. I don’t think we’ll ever see Oliver and Sarah, or Oliver and Laurel together again. Well, they will be together but not ‘together-together’. They will be teammates. In the premiere, we discover the way that Oliver feels about Felicity. If we introduced more random love interests, it would undersell what we do in the premiere”.

How would you describe the dynamic between Thea [played by Willa Holland] and Oliver this season?
“It’s all about unspoken things. Oliver made a commitment to Thea to be more honest with her. So when Oliver and Thea meet up, he is more honest with her. He reveals things that he’s never told her before; things he regrets very much. Their dynamic is certainly going to be different this year, and I’m excited for that”.

Will we see much of Thea in Season Three?
“We will. I’m so fired up for Willa Holland. She’s such a wonderful actor and she’s getting the car keys this year; she’s taking the show for a spin a little bit. Emily Bett Rickards [who plays Felicity] is also getting that opportunity with an episode. We saw what a wonderful job Caity Lotz [Sara Lance], Katie Cassidy [Laurel Lance] and David Ramsey [John Diggle] did last year when they had their character-centric episodes. It’s always such a joy for me to see them do those episodes. Aside from the fact that I get a couple of days off, I’m so proud of our cast. Even though most of them are older than me, I feel like the proud dad when they get their own episodes”.

What is the status of Oliver’s relationship with other key characters at the start of Season Three?
“We find a changed dynamic between Oliver and Roy; they are in a good spot. We find Oliver and Diggle in a spot of conflict because of how much Oliver cares about Diggle. We find Oliver and Laurel in an incredible place, too. There’s a great line in the pilot where Laurel says, “You catch them, I cook them.” I think that’s a really cool line and it’s a really cool dynamic that they have. Arrow and Lance are also in a good spot. Everyone’s in a good spot!”.

The premiere seems to tie up a lot of loose ends…
“Yes. Absolutely. We didn’t leave on a huge cliffhanger at the end of Season Two, like we left with Season One. But we certainly left a couple of loose ends. We tie up those loose ends at the start of Season Two, but then we introduce a whole new set of problems”.

Are you happy that you don’t have to answer any more Justice League movie questions?
“Yes! By the way, we have The Flash show now. We have Firestorm, we have Canary, we have The Atom. The actual Justice League film? I don’t know when that’s coming out, but you can watch The Justice League on television. The reason I’m happy that I don’t have to answer that question anymore is because I think it undersold what we are doing on TV. We produce 22 episodes of television every year, we’ve created a spinoff show, we’re giving people the confidence to green-light other DC properties… I would put the degree of difficulty up there with producing a $250 million film. They are two very different things, and I never want to feel as though our existence is only going to be justified by being part of the cinematic universe. That has nothing to do with anything. We are stamping out our own spot, so I am glad that people know that now”.

How aware are you of the direction of your character throughout this season and future seasons?
“I’m really excited that we are moving to a spot where we will refer to my character as The Green Arrow. We are moving to a spot where we will continue to embrace the fundamental classic elements of the character because we have that license now. We’re 46 episodes in and people like it. They buy into it. But unless this character is evolving – The Hood to Arrow to The Green Arrow – then people are going to lose interest, so I always want there to be a journey for him. And this year’s journey is really interesting”.

Over the past two seasons, has there been a decision or a choice that Oliver made that you struggled to justify on a personal level?
“That’s a really good question. I can’t think of a specific choice, but I will say that the storyline where Oliver has a child really hit home for me. When we filmed that episode, my daughter was five months old. Besides the feelings it stirred up inside me personally, it was also my last scene with Sussana Thompson [who played Moira Queen in the show], whom I love and adore and respect and miss. It was really difficult to divorce my personal feelings from that scene and some of them actually shone through. We live in a pretty fantastical world on Arrow and I’m usually able to divorce Oliver’s reasoning from my own – but the most difficult scene I’ve ever had to shoot was when Oliver finds out that this girl lost the baby”.

via| quimediaset