Arrow Star Stephen Amell: “The Guy We Met in Season One — That’s Not Green Arrow”

The fact that the character isn’t called “Green Arrow” has been a point of contention for some fans, but Amell contends that the show is really the process of building Oliver toward “earning” the Green Arrow name and becoming the character fans love from the source material.

“We didn’t even call Oliver the Arrow until I think really until Season Two and certainly toward the latter stages of Season Two, we chewed up the scenery with it a little bit: ‘The Arrow,’” Amell said. “But the guy that we met in season one — that’s not the Green Arrow. The Green Arrow doesn’t stand for mercilessly killing people…all the time. And then this show is very much about the — the flashbacks are about Oliver’s evolution to the person we met in the pilot. The show has to be about the evolution of that person into the Green Arrow. And as we move along with the show, I think we’re going to get the opportunity and the license from the fans of the show and the audience to move towards more of the iconic elements of the character. You know — the important stuff like boxing glove arrows. I doni’t think that it’s beyond the realm of possibility that eventually the show moves from Arrow to the Green Arrow.”