‘Arrow’ Star Stephen Amell Reveals He Auditioned to Play Booster Gold

Fans might know Stephen Amell for his current turn as Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, but it sounds like he almost played a completely different DC Comics character.

During a recent appearance at Awesome Con, Amell revealed that he auditioned to play Booster Gold “way back when”. While Amell couldn’t give too many details about his audition, he simply added “It happened.”

It’s unclear exactly which version of Booster Gold this audition was for, although the Smallville version of the character seems like a likely candidate. Eric Martsolf played the showboating version of the hero in one episode of Smallville‘s tenth season, appropriately titled “Booster”. The episode presented a pretty one-of-a-kind take on Booster, from the NASCAR-like corporate sponsors on his jacket to his overall attitude towards Smallville‘s heroes.

Since the “Booster” episode aired in 2011 – about a year and a half before Arrow made its debut, and around the same time that a Booster Gold television series was put into development- it makes sense that Amell would have been up for that part in either capacity, only to get his current role down the line.

All these years down the line, this proves to be a weird sort of kismet, considering Booster’s unique place in the live-action space. Booster Gold has yet to make it into the Arrowverse, despite Arrow EP Marc Guggenheim teasing the possibility in the past (and one theory linking a Legends of Tomorrow fan-favorite to Booster as well). There also have been talks about a Booster Gold/Blue Beetle team-up movie from Arrowverse EP Greg Berlanti, but that latter project had not really gotten updates (or an official place in canon) until recently.

“It’s still in development with DC,” Berlanti shared during an interview earlier this month. “I wrote a draft, they’re trying to figure out both the distance that we still have to travel and how we want to execute it.”

“If the studio is excited — it’s obviously their determination.” Berlanti, who recently directed Love, Simon, said of the possibility of him helming Booster Gold. “We finished all the work we need to do on the draft, I would love to do something in that space. I’m still a little clueless on how movies come together. I show up to work every day and make the work as good as I can but then they call me and say, ‘We’re making it!’”

Would you have liked to see Amell’s take on Booster Gold? Let us know in the comments below.

Arrow airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW.