Before Stephen Amell was cast as Oliver Queen in Arrow, Justin Hartley played the Emerald Archer in Smallville. Initially, it was believed that the actor would actually star in the series, but it instead ended up serving as a reboot. Talking to Fake Nerd Podcast, executive producer Marc Guggenheim revealed that he spent years trying to bring Hartley back!
"I'll tell you, Justin is someone I've been trying to get on Arrow for years," the Arrow co-creator revealed, explaining that the stars never aligned and they just couldn't make it happen.
However, Guggenheim still found a way to pay homage to that version of Green Arrow when his costume was spotted in the stinger before the Elseworlds crossover kicked off on Earth-90.
"I did send down the request, 'Could we borrow the costume from archives?' They said yes, but they said yes with a lot of caveats, not the least of which is, 'No one can wear it' and 'You can't get it dirty.' So we put it on a dummy, so thereby we satisfied that loophole, and as far as not getting it dirty, hopefully whoever at archives provided it to us never actually saw that episode."
Hartley seems to have moved on from playing Green Arrow and superhero roles in general, but there are many fans out there who remain anxious to see him suit up again. He's certainly done a lot better than his fellow Smallville alum as he now stars in This Is Us and recently appeared in The Hunt.
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