‘Arrow’: Stephen Amell Reveals His Favorite Villain

Oliver Queen may be dealing with Ricardo Diaz this season on Arrow, but when it comes to favorite villains, series star Stephen Amell has a different bad guy in mind.

Amell appeared at Heroes and Villains Fan Fest in Nashville this weekend and when asked by a fan who his favorite villain was, the Green Arrow actor was quick to declare Adrian Chase/Prometheus (Josh Segarra) his favorite.

“I’m very partial to Josh’s portrayal of Adrian Chase,” Amell said. “I just think that that was a very personal thing and just, you know, Prometheus much like in the way that David Ramsey created Diggle, Josh created Prometheus. A lot of that stuff he had to arc out for himself. I thought that he brought the best out of me and hopefully I brought the best out of him. I just thought that the way that that storyline wrapped up I thought that that made it the best.”

As fans of Arrow will recall, the show’s version of Prometheus isn’t directly based on the comic book version. On the show, Prometheus turns out to be Adrian Chase, Star City District Attorney and alias of Simon Morrison, the illegitimate son of a corrupt pharmaceutical owner who Oliver killed during the show’s first season. That’s what led Simon to have a grudge against Green Arrow driving him to play a long game of revenge. Morrison adopts the Adrian Chase alias, trains under Talia al Ghul, and even uses Arrow’s discarded arrows to fashion his own weapons on his crusade to destroy Oliver’s reputation and break him as a man. As part of his master plan, he becomes Oliver’s ally only to glean more information about him with everything coming to a head in the season five finale. The villain captures Team Arrow, kidnaps Oliver’s son William and William’s mother, Samantha Clayton, and ultimately blows up Lian Yu in an attempt to kill people Oliver cares about. Prometheus also kills himself in front of Oliver and his son.

The character, twisted as he was, is arguably one of the best villains’ Arrow has had. Even Segarra has previously weighed in on what made Prometheus an effective villain, citing that he had a single, uncomplicated mission to focus on.

“I think what made Chase a fun character to play is he had one mission, it wasn’t complicated, it didn’t get muddled, and he has been plotting this for years. The dude went through law school just to kill someone. He’s a fantastic lawyer! That’s all secondary,” Segarra said last year.

As for this season’s villain, Diaz also has a personal desire to see Oliver fall and appears to have the upper hand going into Thursday’s season finale but fans shouldn’t count the hero out yet. Photos from the finale show that Team Arrow has some new help in their fight.

Arrow airs Thursdays at 9/8c on The CW. “Life Sentence,” the season six finale, airs Thursday, May 17th.