ARROW MCM Comic Con Press Event 2016

0
3564

We took part in a press event for The CW’s Arrow with Willa Holland (Thea Queen/Speedy) and Katrina Law (Nissa) in attendance.

 

QUESTION For the season four finale, what was your reaction to the show and what do you feel about the fans reactions to the show?
Willa I don’t want anyone to get too scared due to the fact that most of us chose to walk away from Star City for a little bit, we just needed a little vacation, I needed to go to Hawaii or somewhere with a beach and I feel like Diggle and Lila need that too just to relax. We’re gonna be coming back at our own pace and for our own reasons so I don’t want anyone to be too afraid.
Katrina I’m actually two episodes behind so she just spoiled it for me (everyone laughs).
Willa Sorry that’s what I do. I’m sorry.
Katrina It’s ok, I’ll get over it.
QUESTION We heard a major spoiler (rumour) about a new villain for the upcoming season. We heard his name was James and that he wouldn’t have any super powers. Can you confirm that this is a rumour?
Willa This is the first I am hearing of it, so I can neither confirm or deny for you but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another villain right off the bat. Right guys? We need a reason to keep going.
Katrina If it’s a rumour, then it is totally true.
QUESTION How do you feel about how your characters have progressed over the season?
Willa Oh it has been amazing, one of my favourite things about this show is not just being able to represent females in a whole but all the females on the show being bad ass. I have really enjoyed bringing a young girl who is damaged and a little crazy and full of herself in the beginning to a real stand up human being. Taking that evolution and having her go through things from the negative, partying and all that to actually losing her family and just going through all these real life scenarios and growing up in her own right and taking the time we did to do it was really great to be able to do justice to a growth rather than just doing it one year and at the end of it she’s in a Speedy costume. It was nice to have a story to progress along with it made me feel like it made me grow up a little bit, which you couldn’t tell by my outfit clearly.
Katrina I think we’re really fortunate on this show to be a part of a writing staff and production team that values its female characters and female cast members so much we get to tell a story where we fight for freedom and for love and for justice right along next to the men. And sometimes we fight for our men and sometimes we fight for our own storylines and I think that is very rare for females on television in general, so it is wonderful watching a character like Thea turn into Speedy or someone like Nissa who learns how to love through the Lance sisters and watching the Lance sisters go through their entire development. I think we have such a wonderful cast of strong female characters and I think that is so important and vital especially for the young generation coming up.
QUESTION How do you feel about the relationship between Nissa and Sara Lance? Do you think that is a big step, do you think it is a big thing?
Katrina I think it was a wonderful step and I really appreciate the Arrow writers for the way they dealt with it. I think a lot of times if you have a character that’s not unfortunately a male white character there’s always an explanation for why they are black and on a show, why they are Latino and on a show, why they’re Asian, like they have to have some sort of story to explain that or if they’re gay or lesbian or transsexual. The beautiful thing on this show was they just introduced our relationship and said, “this is what it is” we don’t have a back story for it and everyone just accepted it and I love that they weren’t gay or bi because this happened in their life, they just were what they were and I think that is so important and a huge step forward.
   
QUESTION Talking about the Lances we’ve lost both of them in a way, we’ve lost Sarah to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and of course with Laurel this season with her death.
Willa I think we were all very excited for Caity Lotz with her getting to be on her own show and carve out her character away from our show, and because her character came in during season two so when you’re coming into a show a couple seasons in, it’s always a little different rather than starting from the beginning so it is good for her to get a fresh start on something else. But for the whole Katie Cassidy situation, that was one of the most difficult things that any of us had ever had to film, not that any of the deaths have ever been easy but you know we lost Tommy after season one, we lost Moira after season two while this was four years in and so we were all so close at this point to the point where more than ever it felt like losing a limb but you know she has her Black Siren thing on The Flash which is pretty amazing, and I know that CW and DC on a whole love to keep bringing people back and playing around with our characters and hopping us from show to show, so I’m quite excited to see what they are going to do with her character. I don’t know where she is going to end up but it is great to know that she is still with us. It is not like she is gone.
  GE DIGITAL CAMERA
QUESTION So talking of hopping show to show with The Flash Finale basically setting up Flashpoint (DC Reboot event), will you guys be showing up on that?
Willa Well they did announce (this is one thing I do know), the one piece of information that I do have and can potentially confirm as not being a rumour is the fact that as we’ve always done our crossovers with Arrow and The Flash and we had this one with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, now this year we’re gonna do a crossover of Arrow/The Flash/Legends and Supergirl. How? I don’t know yet but it is apparently set to happen so yeah we’re all pretty excited to be popping into each other’s realms and all I want to say is that I want to be on Earth 2 as long as that happens I’m happy. Earth 2 seems so much better than regular Earth.
QUESTION As an actor how do you feel about crossovers?
Willa They are interesting in the sense that we all love each other. The Flash shoots literally next door to us so I can walk over and steal from their catering if their lunch is before mine. That’s great. So I take advantage of that all the time and Grant and Danielle and all of them are great close friends. And Legends, even though it shoots in Vancouver as well it is a bit off from our sets, but we also get to run into each other and hang out in the city so we’re already like a close family in our own away from the show, so it’s really fun coming to each other’s and getting to play with each other on set. But the actual building of the crossovers and shoving it into our seasons when we have 23 episodes and eight days to do each of the episodes, it becomes a very difficult thing because they’re all of a sudden not making one hour of television in that eight days… somehow we’re supposed to accomplish double the amount of with twice the amount of people.
Katrina I can tell you from coming on, though I have not been a part of the crossovers whenever I walk on set. After they have just done a crossover, everyone is shattered just completely shattered but then the response that you get from every single one of them is we love doing the crossovers because the fans appreciate them so much. That is the honest to goodness response from everyone down from Stephen down to the crew that they love doing them even though they are just knackered by the end of it.
Willa It’s when we start going over our legal hours of work and we all end up living on set and we lose our Saturdays and sometimes our Sundays and it becomes a bit of a jumble, but it’s all in the end entirely worth it and the jokes and the vibes on set are just as positive as they are normally.
QUESTION Would you like to play your character on a different show?
Willa We’re playing the same character throughout it so it is not like there is much of a difference. If I got to go to Earth 2 or got to do something like Katie is with becoming a whole different superhero, it would be awesome to be able to actually really play around with like a totally different version.
QUESTION If you could invent your own Earth 2 character what would you have them do?
Willa I keep on saying that Speedy or Thea needs to be in Earth 2 as Artemis and or as Speedy with a yellow cape because that’s just something I need in my own personal life (everyone laughs) if I am not the first person on this show with a cape I might lose it. It’s like my one requirement, it is the one thing I have asked for since Day One. It’s been four years guys can we please start this whole brand tweeting thing already that says #TheaCape or #SpeedyCape whatever, just get it going.
QUESTION Would you be good or evil with a cape?
Willa It doesn’t matter either good or evil. I’d be amazing with a cape. It is just all that matters.
 QUESTION One of the press asks Willa if she wants to borrow his cape from his Superman costume.
Willa OH MY GOD YES. What is this? (Gets up to put on the cape) Oh thank you. I feel like Grant Gustin gets to feel every day.
QUESTION How do you feel about the separation of the DC TV and Film universes?
Willa It is something that we have all just kind of accepted. We get it, we’re not going to fight about it, we’re not going to bring it up anymore but it was something that in day one when it started to happen – and we were about season 2 when they started telling us – we had to start basically killing off the Suicide Squad that we were starting to build on our own. We were trying to build that on the show on our own, and I guess once DC found out that they were doing their own movie of it we had to axe all of the characters before we even got to show them, which was a little annoying at first and then when Stephen found out that there was going to be a Justice League it only seemed rightly so that he would be playing Green Arrow as well as that Grant Gustin would be playing The Flash, and it just seemed the right normal answer and once they said no you can’t really fight against them for it as they are the people who gave us a job in the first place. So you just have to sit there on your hands and say okay I get it.
Katrina I think it is above our pay grade to know whatever legal matters are happening behind the scenes as to why they are keeping them separate, but I do know if Stephen and Grant were to be given their parts in the movie they would kill it and just be amazing, and I think they could totally hold their own in there.
Willa We all know they could hold their own and it proves that it does in fact work because Marvel does it on their own weird mash between Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the movies, so it is a little upsetting that you know it is possible and it can be done and how good it would be. Now you’re giving the world two different Flashes all of a sudden.
 QUESTION We saw the lovely Colton Haynes come back this year as Roy Harper. How was that for you and what are the chances we might see him on the show in the future.
Willa Well he just announced two weeks ago that he is coming back in season 5 which is the greatest thing ever. Having him come back in season four was amazing. I wish we got to do more stuff together, I really wish that we got to see both of us in costume. Hopefully we will see that in Season 5, put that into Twitter as well. When Colton’s arc ended we were all just, “Why, why are you going?” It was so great that he decided to come back for that one stint and the fact that he is coming back for more. I hope we just lock him in a box and keep him there forever, I might do it on my own if they don’t so if you don’t see Colton for awhile and he’s not posting on Instagram, it is OK, he’s safe, he’s fine, he’s in my care! (laughter).
 QUESTION What would you like to see him (Colton Haynes) do on the show next?
Willa I’d like to see him as Arsenal, I’d love to see Speedy and Arsenal fighting alongside each other.
Katrina He’s be really confused as to why his costume was shredded though.
Willa Or why it didn’t fit him anymore. I just want to be working with him as much as possible. He is my favourite human being, I love him so much.
QUESTION Stephen Amell seems to be very active social media wise and he’s always doing something where he is giving away pizza in a pizza store or he is working with other charities. Is he like that in real life?
Willa He’s very much that guy. Stephen is… I don’t know how he does it because he makes all of us look really bad because of none of us really do that stuff and it is horrible to say that out loud, but the guy works more than any of us do and he still somehow has not only the energy but the drive to keep doing so many of these other side projects, not to mention also raise a new daughter. There are so many things he does that I don’t get it. I don’t understand when he sleeps.
Katrina He is the hardest working man in Hollywood. And he never gets sick.
Willa I’ve seen him sick once in four years and he wasn’t really sick, he just coughed like twice. Twice in the span of three weeks and we’re like, “Stephen’s sick, the world is ending!” and he’s totally fine.
QUESTION So we won’t have you guys turning up on WWE this Summer then?
Willa Yeah I should be there.
Katrina We’re gonna be a tag team.
Willa Let me take down like, is Hulk Hogan still doing it? Cuz I wanna tackle him and take him down and be like, “YOU ARE TOO ORANGE!”, “STOP TANNING!”
Katrina Well I just met the Four Horseman so you know maybe we could do something where she and I tag team against them.
Willa I take two horses, you take two horses
Katrina Will we wear capes for you?
Willa Yeah that would be our thing.
QUESTION How do you enjoy the fight scenes? Is it all done by yourselves?
Katrina I mean that’s the best part.
Willa If they let us all do it by ourselves I don’t think I would be physically here today to be speaking to any of you. I’m so happy that my stunt double is as incredible not only as a martial artist but as a human being. I love my stunt double Melissa Jin – shoutout girl you are the best! She is honestly incredible and I tell her every day that she is the real speedy and any time they call us to set, I’m like no I’m the stunt double guys remember like I’m the one that stands there says something and she does everything for real, like I’m just there as a glorified figure and you are the actual superhero as she can really do all that stuff and she even does some of the stuff in the guys’ costumes because she is so badass and rad that some of the guys can’t even do some of the things that she can do. Our stunt double and our stunt team altogether – James Bamford is a legend. He is not only the best stunt coordinator ever but also a really great director for Season Four Episodes Seven and Fourteen best episodes I have actually ever worked on. I wish we got to do more but I am happy that we don’t because there’s great people who can really do it doing it for us and there’s also a bunch of legal reasons on why we are not allowed to be around shards of glass because I have seen it go through a guy’s calf, and it is not a pretty sight so I’m happy that we’ve got these bad ass people representing for us and holding it down.
  GE DIGITAL CAMERA