Stephen Amell Purposefully Ripped His Original Arrow Pants to Get a New Suit

Since Arrow initially debuted in 2012, Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) Green Arrow costume has become beloved by many. But as Amell revealed during a recent appearance at MCM London Comic Con, the very first iteration of the suit came with some unexpected challenges. According to Amell, the initial suit, which was designed by three-time Oscar winner Colleen Atwood, was not as flexible as he would have liked, which he responded to in a very specific way.

“So the very first time I put on the suit…” Amell explained. “It was designed by Colleen Atwood who, when I went to her home in Malibu, I looked up and I’m like ‘Oh, cool! There’s that thing that you get when you get nominated for an Academy Award.’ Like she had one of those plaques. And then I looked further to my right and I go ‘Oh my god, that’s an Academy Award.’ She’s won the Oscar, I think two or three times, for costume design. And she made the original Arrow suit, which was beautiful… if you were a mannequin. But when you actually try to move, it was all leather.”

“So I couldn’t actually reach my arm back to get an arrow from the quiver, which I felt was important.” Amell continued. “And then also, there were no what we now call gussets, basically spandex in the legs and in the arms. Because my first move in my first fight was to get down into a crouching position, which was impossible. And I said ‘Guys, you need to put gussets in the suit.’ And they go ‘We can’t, Colleen Atwood made it, we can’t mess with it.’ And I [squatted and said] ‘Can you mess with it now?’ I ripped the pants on purpose, because if it had happened during production, then we would have been delayed for like two hours.”

Over the seven years of Arrow‘s tenure, Oliver’s suit has evolved quite a bit, and each new iteration has reportedly come with a bit of a price tag.

“I would say the Arrow costume costs us about $5,000 to make.” Arrow consulting producer Marc Guggenheim explained in 2017. “So every time we need to do a new costume, like sometimes they get damaged doing stunts. Sometimes, you know, like in Season 4, we created a brand new costume. It costs about $5,000.”

What do you think of Amell ripping the pants of his initial Arrow suit? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Arrow will return for an eighth and final season Tuesdays at 9/8c this fall on The CW.