Arrow's Stephen Amell Talks Casey Jones/Wild Dog Comparisons

Outside of somebody in the Friday the 13th franchise, it would be difficult to think of a young, attractive actor more consistently surrounded by hockey masks and outlandish violence this year than Stephen Amell.

Before Wild Dog joined Team Arrow back in October, Amell played Casey Jones, a hockey mask-wearing vigilante who, historically, has a pretty bad temper when it comes to the bad guys.

Needless to say -- especially with someone who has cultivated a public persona as well as Amell, who has fans follow him from Arrow to other projects in part because his charity work and online presence makes him a likable character in his own right -- there were a fair number of fans who saw the Wild Dog casting notice and immediately thought "Really? They put Casey Jones on Arrow?"

Amell, for his part, has a sense of humor about it.

On last week's episode of Arrow, Artemis asked Wild Dog "what kind of vigilante wears a hockey mask?" and Oliver piped up in defense of his charge.

"I think it's cool," he said, Amell seemingly barely suppressing the urge to laugh.

It was a funny and delightfully "meta" moment, especially coming from Arrow, the show that's generally considered to be the dark and dangerous corner of the CW DC Universe.

"One of the producers asked me, 'Do you think this is too on the nose?' I was like, 'No, becuase why are we doing this show if we're not going to have fun with something like that?'"

Arrow airs Wednesday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.