Stephen Amell Explains Why He Fought Ra's Al Ghul Shirtless In Arrow Midseason Finale

When Batman and Ra's al Ghul battled in the desert -- a scene reminiscent of the Arrow midseason finale in a number of ways -- the pair did so shirtless, creating one of the most iconic scenes in the villain's long career.

Some fans questioned why they'd done it on Arrow, though, since while it made sense in the scorching desert, it's a bit harder to swallow in the snow of Vancou...err, Starling City.

Well, during a recent Q&A on Facebook, series star Stephen Amell -- known for going shirtless with little prompting anyway -- explained it.

"I was really, really cold. It was -- let's go with Celsius since the majority of the world is going to watch this and not just the United States of America -- it was I'd say two degrees Celsius. And it was windy and it was raining," Amell said. "And that's one of the reasons why my left pectoral twitched in one of the scenes. The fight in and of itself, I was fine, because we were fighting, but the whole lead-up, I was cold. Cold, cold, cold. We'd been planning to do the fight shirtless for a number of reasons. The first one, I had suggested it to the producers because I didn't want my stunt double Simon doing one single thing. I love you, Simon. It turns out, though, that Batman and Ra's al Ghul fighting shirtless on the top of a mountain is a very iconic image from the comic books, so we wanted to honor that as well."

He added that the weather was so miserable that the studio had called to offer him a chance to do it with a shirt, but Amell declined, in part because he had already undergone an hour's worth of makeup that day to affix the scars and prosthetics for "shirtless Oliver."