Arrow Star Stephen Amell Talks "Olicity" With USA Today [video]

In a new interview with USA Today, Arrow star Stephen Amell was given a couple of minutes to tease some new footage, talk about the development of Laurel Lance and chime in, of course, with his opinions on a potential relationship between Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak. Telling the newspaper that Oliver's ability to "play well with others" will be tested over the next few episodes, Amell said that just as he thinks things are beginning to come together, everything will fall apart. He's concerned about Roy, Amell said, because he's seen the impact the Mirakuru drug can have on a basically good person with Slade on the island--and he's watching Laurel continue to spiral deeper and deeper, pretending all along that none of it bothers her. He also promised that there is an upcoming episode where Oliver gets to say the name of a famous DC Comics character--and that he was so excited to say the name, that he had to keep redoing the line because he got the rest of it wrong. Of course, as with most interviews, eventually it turns to the "Olicity" phenomenon--the large number of fans who ship his character and his lovable assistant and want to see the two together. "I don't know if there's going to be any romance in the future," Amell said of his character's onscreeen relationship with Emily Bett Rickards's Felicity Smoak, who is the stepmother of Firestorm in the comics. "I know that Emily and I have worked very hard so that at the end of episode ten when I say to her that 'I rely on you,' and that 'you are not my employee, you're my partner,' we really wanted people to be able to buy that. We wanted people to really feel as though she was an absolutely integral part of this whole vigilante-turned-hero operation. I think we've done that. So it's really nice that there is a segment of the fan base that would like us to be a couple because that speaks to us having good chemistry onscreen and that's a huge compliment--but I don't write the show." Given that Amell told fans on his Facebook page that Oliver will have a relationship "coming right up," it's difficult not to assume that, for the moment, things with Felicity will be sufficiently complicated by her putative relationship with the comatose Barry Allen to cool sexual tension a little bit and give each of them a chance to look elsewhere. That may not sit well with a lot of the fans, but is fairly in line with the "will they or won't they" chemistry that drives a lot of their relationship; in the comments thread on the story linked above, many fans noted that "Olicity" should be an endpoint, but a stop along the way, and that it may take Oliver getting his relationship sea legs back under him with somebody less suited to him before he can fully commit to the fan-favorite Smoak.