Stephen Amell feels 'great' about the Arrowverse ending with The Flash

It's the end of an era.

When The Flash finishes its run in tonight's series finale, the Arrowverse is officially ending with it. So it's only appropriate to check in with Stephen Amell — the guy who put the Arrow in Arrowverse — on how he's feeling as the massive, interconnected TV universe he helped build comes to a close after more than a decade.

Below, Amell opens up about how the Arrowverse is ending with The Flash, looks back on his first time meeting Grant Gustin, and more.

Katie Yu/The CW Stephen Amell as Green Arrow and Grant Gustin as the Flash

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Take me all the way back to Arrow season 2. How did you first learn that the Flash was going to be introduced as kind of a backdoor pilot on your show?

STEPHEN AMELL: Originally it was supposed to be a backdoor pilot and then they thought with the grand scope of it, with David Nutter directing and all those pieces, that they needed more time, which retrospectively makes a lot of sense. This was right after the first season. [Executive producer] Greg Berlanti called me into his office and said, "Hey, we're going to be introducing Barry Allen. He's the Flash. We want to spend the next bit of time building the Justice League on TV." And that's precisely what they did. They followed through on that. I mean, I think DC gets a lot of s--- for not building this interconnected universe. I just think people need to look at what they did on TV.

What was your first impression of Grant when you met him?

My first impression of Grant is actually I think when I was at my most impressed with him. It was the table read for his introductory episode, and he had the majority of lines and a lot of the scientific jargon and a lot of the Barry Allen sort of chatter that we've all come to know that was very foreign to what we did on our show. He's still a young guy now, certainly, and this is 10 years ago, so I can imagine that it would be very intimidating to come in there and to basically be the star in the middle of a table read with a bunch of people that have just spent the past year and a half grinding together and are tired because it's almost Christmas break. But he was just great.

I know I'm being effusive but when he got on set, he just had that energy. I think back to the very first time that Oliver and Barry interacted, I think that I found something in the character by working with Grant that I hadn't discovered before. When I go back and I look at the first season of Arrow specifically, it's a very difficult watch for me because they very much wanted Oliver to be this removed, suffering-from-PTSD figure, this solitary figure, and it wasn't until later seasons that I feel like I fully realized what I could do with the character. Whereas to me, it feels like Grant came in just fully formed, which is super impressive.

Did you give him any advice at the time on what it took to lead a superhero show, knowing he would soon launch The Flash?

Absolutely not. No, we never spoke about it. I had my way of doing things, but my way of doing things in the early going of Arrow was too ... frankly, I think I was a little intense, to be perfectly honest with you. Because I was young and I'd never had this sort of experience or responsibility, this situation where people were relying on me, and I handled that as best I could. But the attitude and the energy on their set was different from our set, as it was different on Legends, as it was different on Supergirl, as it was different on Batwoman. I always felt like The Flash was more summer camp, and we were more working in the steel mill, punching a clock, and we're going to go really hard. So it was just always different. Grant never needed my advice.

Diyah Pera/The CW Grant Gustin as Barry Allen and Stephen Amell as Oliver Queen in the first Arrowverse crossover "Flash vs. Arrow"

What was it like the first time that you got to shoot on The Flash set?

It was the pilot of The Flash. I shot for Arrow for the entire day and then went over, popped on my superhero suit, and gave Barry a superhero name. That's one of my favorite scenes that we've ever shot together. And one of the nice things about coming back, and how collaborative [current The Flash showrunner] Eric Wallace was, I told him that my favorite scene that we ever shot in a crossover, aside from my favorite scene in the pilot, was when Barry and Oliver had a drink at the bar. And he wrote this beautiful scene of the two of us sitting there having a beer [for Oliver's return in season 9]. If you go back and you really pay close attention to the dialogue, it's pretty much verbatim what I said to him in the pilot of The Flash. That was a really neat full-circle moment.

When you and Grant first started to work together, did you two ever talk about what you were in the process of building with the Arrowverse?

I think that that's something that you guys, the media journalists, think about, because you guys get the opportunity to look at it from 30,000 feet. I think for us, it's just about getting the work done and making sure that we put forth our best effort. It's difficult to really think about in the grand scheme of things, what it all means in terms of building this interconnected universe on television. I feel a little bit too in the weeds. It was a pretty big deal. Going into our third season where we did a massive DC night in Hall H at San Diego Comic-Con, we had everyone on stage and they had me do some emceeing for it, and just walking out and seeing however many thousand people are in there, you think about it then. But beyond that, not really.

As you look back on your time in the Arrowverse and all those crossovers, what do you remember most?

I remember it for my first appearance on The Flash. I remember it for the first time Oliver and Barry get to interact with Superman for the first time and Supergirl. I mean, come on. That's me feeling like a kid, dream come true. And then Grant and Melissa [Benoist]and I going to Chicago to shoot the scenes for the introduction of Ruby Rose as Batwoman was a pretty unique scenario. They flew us out there after a day of shooting, on a private jet to Chicago, and we shot there for a couple of days. That was pretty cool.

How do you feel knowing that The Flash is the show that gets to carry the Arrowverse across the finish line?

Great. I'm glad that we could be a small part of it. Maybe they should have changed the name, since I was done.

There was a moment in time when they tried to rename it.

Oh yeah, didn't they try it? They tried to call it the CW-verse?

Yeah, it did not stick.

That's fine. Hey, listen, full marks for trying. I've got no problem with them trying, but if it doesn't work, just don't double down.

The Flash series finale airs Wednesday, May 24, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.

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