Stephen Amell Confirms Heels Has Been Renewed for Season 2

By Connor Casey

Stephen Amell, star of the Starz wrestling drama Heels, took to Twitter on Wednesday to confirm that the show had officially been renewed for a second season. Amell wrote, "I want my belt back," referencing how his character, Jack Spade, lost the DWL Championship in a Ladder Match in the closing moments of Season 1. 

Created by Michael Waldron, the show centers around the fictional small town of Duffy, Georgia and its independent professional wrestling promotion, the Duffy Wrestling League. Alongside Jack Spade, other wrestlers featured include Ace Spade (Alexander Ludwig), Crystal Tyler (Kelli Berglund), Apocalypse (James Harrison) and Wild Bill Hancock (Chris Bauer).

In interviews leading up to the show's premiere, Waldron confirmed that it took years to find the right actor to play Jack Spade, with former WWE Champion (and now AEW star CM Punk) even auditioning for the role long before the show got the green light. Waldron explained in an interview with ComicBook how Amell became the obvious choice once Arrow started winding down. 

"Well, casting the lead of any show is hard, because they've just got to be an awesome, tremendous actor who can carry a show on their shoulders," Waldron said. "Playing Jack Spade, there's the added requirement of you have to have the physicality of a great wrestler. We had to have somebody who could believably pull off this stuff in the ring and outside of the ring, when framed against his wife and kids, and other people in the town, you'd believe this is a pro wrestler who lives here.

"There's not a lot of people who look like that who are also great actors. Steven Amell is one of those people," he added. "We were so fortunate to get him, coming off of the success of Arrow, with the ultimate added bonus of the guy loves wrestling. He might be the biggest fan of all of us, and he's actually wrestled with WWE. So I mean, God, we were lucky to get Steve."

He also brought up Amell's authenticity, as he's actually wrestled matches in WWE, Ring of Honor and the event that eventually led to the launch of All Elite Wrestling — "All we had to do when we found out he was available, we just started sending around a YouTube clip. It's like, okay, you don't just jump from the floor over the top of a rope and just make it look like I'm going down the stairs to get breakfast. It was like, come on man. That's the hardest thing is to get... Look, why are the actors that you love that do boxing shows, it's all about their authenticity. And this guy is authentic."

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