Stephen Amell on Arrow Season 4, Olicity’s chances and the possibility of directing
When Arrow fans last saw Oliver Queen he was making his way out of town, leaving friends and family behind in Starling City as he hit the road with Felicity. Where will Season 4 find Oliver and Felicity when the superhero drama returns in the fall to the CW? Stephen Amell offered up a few cryptic hints and teases about Olicity and what’s ahead to The TV Junkies.
“Well they’ve been away,” jokes Amell about where we pick up with the couple in the premiere. “They are away and I believe they are still away when we get going again,” he says. Does this mean that Season 4 may actually give Olicity a shot at being happy together? “Well you never know, but I think if anyone has a decent chance it’s Oliver and Felicity. Time will tell,” Amell teases.
As previously confirmed by Amell in one of his Facebook chats, the action will pick up several months later which is something he says shouldn’t really be looked at as anything out of the ordinary for Arrow. “When I said there was a time jump people were like, ‘Oh my God really?’ I didn’t think that was very spoilery because the show has always followed chronologically when we air. Whenever we’ve taken a break and go off the air from May til October, when we leave it’s May and when we come back it’s October,” he explains.
Having gotten his hands on the first few scripts of Season 4, Amell did say that “it still feels like our show but there are different elements that I think people are going to enjoy.” One of the early highlights for him has been that “we get to see some characters interact that weren’t always the closest of friends or interacting on a regular basis which is neat when you’re doing new stuff in the fourth season of a show.”
Would that new stuff ever including a spot in the director’s chair for Amell? “I am actually interested in directing and I’ve been asked a couple of times if I’d be interested in directing an episode of Arrow by Greg Berlanti,” he tells us. However, the actor has some concerns about stepping behind the camera. “I would like to do it eventually, but to direct an episode of Arrow I think would be a nod towards my own vanity a little bit. It’s not just the fact that I’m in most episodes, but it’s the fact that there’s a prep period before where I’d be shooting and there’s cutting the episode on the B-side where I’d also be shooting. I just don’t think it’s the most practical instance.” he explains
Unless Oliver decides to take a sabbatical in the near future and go away for a few weeks directing doesn’t seem in Amell’s plans for the near future. “There were a couple of episodes last year where I could have done it, but I’ll tell you, if I ever have an episode where I’m not shooting 7 out of the 8 days I use that time to regenerate,” he says.
What do you think Olicity will be up to when Arrow returns? Add your thoughts in the comments below.
Arrow returns for Season 4 on Wednesday, October 7 at 8 p.m. on the CW.
Related Posts
About The Author
Bridget Liszewski
Editor in Chief Bridget Liszewski comes from a long line of TV Junkies who fostered her love of television from a very young age. She's channeled that passion into covering both US and Canadian television shows, and is thankful everyday for the invention of the DVR. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, she loves college football and is a fan of sports in general. Bridget is always up for talking TV and you can follow her on twitter at @BridgetOnTV.
I certainly hope that S4 of Arrow shows Olicity in a happy, healthy, solid relationship where they work as a team to overcome whatever challenges team Arrow faces and the challenges every new relationship faces. I’m looking forward to a more balanced season since S3 seemed off centered at times.
I want Season 4 to show Oliver and Felicity in a happy, loving relationship, where they fight crime together as partners with the rest of Team Arrow.
I’d love to see Oliver and Felicity in a relationship where they’re committed to being together, to making it work, and where they function as true partners and equals. They went through a lot to be together, so let them be together. Not saying there can’t be conflict in the relationship of some sort (all stories have them) but not triangles and other people and all that soap opera stuff. Let Arrow establish them as the couple and move on to telling the story, get them back in the action, and just be a great show.
I hope season 4 will keep olicity together and happy, they both deserve it! I want to see them go all the way to getting married maybe! I know that there are some out there who don’t like them together, but you have to admit they are perfect! I’d also like to see diggle and oliver rekindle their friendship !
Great interview. Thanks for getting Stephen on for this!
Hoping that we get to see some great Team Arrow action with S4, including Oliver and Felicity working together and being together.
I hope Season 4 will have Olicity in a solid relationship together!! Oliver seems to wonder and lose himself without Felicity and Diggle. If he is going to move to the Green Arrow. Felicity needs to be by his side. Based on the comments I hope we get to see Thea and Felicity develop a close friendship.
They better handle Olicity like the Lyla/Diggle relationship, I’m sick of all these emotional scenes, it was a huge part of why Season 3 was the weakest of them all.
I hope Season 4 finds Oliver & Felicity in an equal partnership where they are supportive of and leaning on each other. I also hope we get glimpses of their road trip and further relationship developments.
I agree with all these comments. Olicity fans, please tell Marc what you look forward to on his Tumblr account as well. That way he’ll definitely see it.
I want to see Oliver and Felicity be happy and together in S4. No more love triangles. I would like to see them work together and have a healthy relationship. And I would like to see more Felicity and Thea scenes!
I hate Olicity, and Felicity gets more and more annoying each season.
If you “hate” it so much and find Felicity so annoying – don’t watch the show!!!
Ugh! I so hate this Olicity crap! I know Arrow hasn’t really been true to the comic books as much, but if the producers and writers go with 3 straight season of this, it really really piss off true Green Arrow fans such as myself. Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, Laurel Diana Lance/Black Canary are supposed to be together. I don’t mind that they’re not together now since it’s a 5 seasons plan, but when the series is said and done they better be together again or true fans will really be pissed off. Although they’re on different shows Felicity is really supposed to be with Ronnie Raymond/ Firestorm. I really wish, comic book shows and movies would stsy true to the comic books when it comes to relationships of the characters.
Uh, no; in the comics Felicity Smoak married Ronnie Raymond’s FATHER, not Ronnie. If you’re going to go all fanboy and hate on Felicity because the comics say it has to be Laurel and Oliver–even though Dinah and Laurel share nothing in common except a name, they got divorced more than ten years ago, and the new 52 has her married to another guy and they’ve never even met–then at least get it right.
I just hope they’ll stop pondering to vocal groups and concentrate on the story they want to tell. Olicity is so out of the place and it feels like cheap soap show inside the show.
I always have mixed feelings with this. I thoroughly enjoy Felicity. And even though I am a significant Green Arrow fan, I have to point out 1) I rarely see people complaining about Diggle who also is a beloved extraneous character. 2) Everyone knows who Harley Quinn is, right? She was added by Batman animated series on TV and has become a beloved icon appearing in the comic books. So seriously we can accept a character from a cartoon show, but not television? Its all the making of a universe which has a multitude of splits and avenues in comic books already. Shes a wonderful character that gives depth. Yeah they make it hokey a bit with the relationship but the best times are when she’s showing her true intelligence and witt. For real. You’ll accept a psychotic woman before you’ll accept an intelligent one? Comon nerdbros.
I really loved S3 and hope they will keep Oliver and Felicity together since we already had to say goodbye to Roy. The romance makes the show better. That’s why I watch the show and couldn’t care less about the comics.
You care less about the comics because you don’t read the comics, true fans do care about it. You’re not a Arrow, you’re an olicity fan
There’s nothing wrong with being a fan of the TV show Arrow and not the Green Arrow comics. To put them in the same exact same category and write your own rules saying they have to line up and be one in the same because nothing else is ‘right’ is stifling creativity and choice. It’s a TV show BASED off the comics, not a filmic reenactment. I know this sounds rude and a attacking, and I know you’re a fan of the comics, but please kindly respect others creativity and right to be a fan of whatever they choose without putting it in your neat little labeled boxes of right and wrong. The TV show works for some and not for others. Because people are different and TV and comics are different with different audiences and needs to keep people interested.
I loved seasons 1, 2 and 3. Can’t wait for season 4. There is so much to look forward to with all the characters and I can’t wait to see Oliver and Felicity working together with the team. They really are the best couple on tv to me.
I hope Felicity dies.
Man, it sure would be nice if Stephen would actually talk about Oliver in terms outside Olicity. It really must suck for him that the majority of his particular fandom only care about his character as a part of that couple.
No one is commenting on how much Oliver’s character has backslid in development since he’s supposedly been in love with her and they say she made him a better man when the end of the season finale proved she just makes him selfish like her.
I am a big fan of the relationship between Oliver and Felicity. As she has been his partner (his words) for a very long time as a friend, it would be lovely to add the element of showing their true feelings and growing stronger as a couple. If the writers can make them better people and crime fighters by being together than they were apart, fans should embrace the change in dynamic. They could find safety in each other, emotional stability, and better communication. A relationship could do what it’s supposed to do for these to characters and enhance to show.
I really do hope that Season 4 will bring the end for Olicity. Now that fangirls got what they wanted at the end of Season 3, I think it’s time for the combined awesomeness of Green Arrow and Black Canary to make the show a worthy adaptation of the comics and not a cheap soap-opera (as it became in Season 3 with Felicity’s constant whining).