Colton Haynes interview: Arrow season 3, new DC characters

With powers that may or may not be gone and his very own superhero mask, Roy Harper is poised to become more than just Oliver’s protégé when Arrow returns for its third season. Earlier this year, we caught up with Colton Haynes to discuss the state of Team Arrow, Roy’s relationship with Thea, the Arsenal/Speedy issue and which new DC characters will be coming in for season three…

Congratulations on season two, it’s had a great reaction.

Thank you, it’s been a blast. And I’m very happy about that, I love the finale too. I just watched it a few days ago, and it was even better than when I read it.

How have you felt about Roy’s development this season?

I like that it’s been stretched out. I like that now, obviously they had to put Roy through a lot of things to be a hero like Oliver, and I’ve liked how they’ve given a lot of moments for Roy and Thea to develop their relationship. But now they’ve taken it away [laughs]. That’s going to be the thing I’m looking forward to the most when reading the first script, to see what’s going on with Roy and Thea. Also Oliver and Felicity. They filmed a bunch of stuff that didn’t air, which we talked about in a few interviews but it would have sent the fans… like… they would have all fainted.

It couldn’t have beaten the reaction the finale got…?

Oh, it would have been terrible. The Olicity fans would have just lost their minds. But we’ll see, maybe there’ll be more of that in season three.

In terms of Roy and Thea, obviously it ended on an unhappy note, will we see them come together quite quickly or will they be separated for a while?

I feel like the beginning of season three is going to focus a little more on the team aspect, and also how Thea’s realised that she’s been lied to by everybody. I wonder what she did to everyone else for them to be like, ‘I’m going to lie to you all the time.’? But they’re going to focus on that, and obviously now we have the bigger bad in Malcolm Merlyn who’s basically trying to kill us all. Thea’s a part of that, and I’m interested to see where Sin fits in all of this. Is Sin going to take my side or is she going to take Thea’s side? I don’t know, but that’s something I’m excited about.

There’s that lovely little trio, a kind of sub-team which people really liked…

I loved that!

…the fact that there was no complicated love triangle was nice.

You said the word of the hour, which is the season three love triangle that’s about to happen and I can hint about. I don’t know who it’s going to be, but it’s going to be pretty devastating.

With Roy involved? At the centre of it?

Yes – I don’t know if he’s the centre of it, but there is going to be new romances for a few of the main characters.

Does that mean new DC characters coming in?

Yes, new, very popular characters in the universe. So, yeah, who knows?

Roy joined Team Arrow at the end of the season, what does the team look like when we come back?

I’ve only been given a few little hints, but now Sarah’s left and given the jacket to Laurel, its like, ‘is Laurel going to be in the fold?’ I don’t know, but now everybody knows the secret identity of Oliver Queen.

You’ve got the red mask now, does that mean you’ll be in costume next year?

Well, I was supposed to be in full costume during the finale but they held it for the future, I guess just to give it its justice. So I don’t know when that’s going to be, I assume it’s going to happen and I assume everyone’s tired of the red hoodies. Roy can hopefully borrow some money from the Queens to get some new clothes, and hopefully it’s a nice outfit. We’ll see.

Will the costume be like Oliver’s?

Well I hear that it’s just tights, and then some red ballet shoes – no, I’m kidding. When you see the comic books, there are certain variations of what people think, and I’ve seen ideas. It’ll be something fresh and new.

You had powers this year, will we see any after-effects of that even though Roy was cured?

Well, with the powers they were obviously induced by a drug but, whenever you get a cure, things can always mess up. Or when people have the cure, that doesn’t mean they’re always taking the right dose. So you never know, maybe Roy’s cured and maybe he’s not.

Roy and Oliver have an uneasy partnership, now that Roy’s in the Arrow Cave, who would you like to see him bond with?

Emily’s (Bett Rickards) awesome and I love her to death, so it would be nice to work with her a little more. And David (Ramsey) is so good at making everyone laugh without trying, that it causes a storm. I just saw the season two gag real, and it’s all of us just laughing because David’s cracking everyone up. But I see some similarities between Roy and Felicity, with their dry sense of humour and their little back and forths. So that’d be a nice thing to see.

There’s been speculation that Thea could be a villain next season…

I think there’s truth in that, I mean she’s realised that everything’s not how it’s been. Thea Queen, even in season one, has a little bit of an edge to her so I could definitely see Thea and Malcolm being the big bads of season three. But whereas Malcolm doesn’t necessarily have that much of a heart, it’s going to be up to the people that really get Thea to maybe bring her away from the dark side a bit. But I could have just made all of that up…

There’s still confusion over the Red Arrow/Speedy/Arsenal issue, can you clarify anything there?

It’s funny because there was a bunch of Speedy moments that got cut, because they didn’t wanna give too much away. Basically, whenever he says Speedy, to me, it calmed me down because I thought of Thea. But that sent the fans going crazy, so Mark Guggenheim did confirm that Arsenal is the path that Roy Harper is going to go down. When that’s going to happen I’m not sure, but there’s going to be a bunch of jokes that are going to be thrown around – trying to pick which nickname that Roy will use.

So basically, throughout the season they’re going to be saying Oracle or saying Speedy, and I just shut them all down until we get to the one that Mark believes is going to be Arsenal. But there are different variations, so I don’t think I’m going to end up cutting my arm off or with the drug abuse just yet. But we have about ten more seasons left of the show so…

Can you tease anything about season three?

I can tease the possibility of someone from Roy’s past coming in and taking Roy’s mind off of Thea for a bit. And then there’s the massive new characters coming in that the fans will know. I’m not sure how soon that’ll be, but I think it’ll be pretty early in the season.

What are your hopes for Roy?

I’d love to see a little bit of Roy’s past. I know that in the first Vertigo episode in season one, we mentioned something about my mom having a very bad drug past, and I know that we are going to get to see a little bit of backstory for Felicity in the next season. There are little Easter Eggs with all of our storylines, but I do think that we’ll see a little bit more of Roy’s past due to someone that’s going to come in, bringing a lot of possible trouble to town.

Arrow season 2 is released on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK on Monday the 22nd of September.

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