Arrow Exclusive: Spartacus Alum Tapped to Play Amanda Waller
Cynthia Addai-RobinsonAmanda Waller is coming to Arrow!
Spartacus alum Cynthia Addai-Robinson has been tapped to play the DC Comics villain, TVGuide.com has learned exclusively.
The CW developing Arrow spin-off to feature the Flash
In the Arrow-verse, the formidable and enigmatic Amanda Waller works for A.R.G.U.S. — Advanced Research Group United Support — a clandestine agency that has a mysterious agenda and possesses key information about the Arrow. In the comics, Waller runs the Suicide Squad, which will be introduced in Season 2 as Deadshot (Michael Rowe) teams up with Bronze Tiger, who will be played by Michael Jai White.
Addai-Robinson, whose credits also include The Vampire Diaries and FlashForward, joins an impressive list of women who have played Amanda Waller, including Pam Grier in Smallville, Angela Bassett in Green Lantern and CCH Pounder in the animated Justice League.
Addai-Robinson's potentially recurring role is slated to begin in Episode 6 of the sophomore season. Arrow returns Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8/7c on The CW.
'Arrow' scoop: The Flash's first episode starts shooting Sept. 30
We’re still awaiting a casting announcement for Dr. Barry Allen, who’ll recur on Arrow this season to begin telling the Flash’s origin story — and possibly set a spin-off series in motion for The CW. But we can report that it will happen soon, after checking in with Arrow exec producer Andrew Kreisberg today. “We’ll have to have somebody by Sept. 30, which is when we start shooting [his first] episode. So there is that timeline,” he says. “But it’s been a really exciting process just getting to meet so many fantastic actors and seeing the enthusiasm that so many people around town have for the character. It’s just amazing — I have pictures of myself at age 4 holding a Flash and a Superman doll. That I’m sitting here writing the Flash and Green Arrow now, it’s more than my little nerd heart can bear sometimes.”
In a conference call with reporters at the end of July, Kreisberg said he anticipated Dr. Barry Allen appearing in three season 2 episodes written by himself, EP Greg Berlanti, and Geoff Johns, chief creative officer of DC Entertainment. “Despite the fact that he’s got superpowers, I think there’s something really relatable about Barry — of all the big seven of the Justice League. He got his powers by accident. He isn’t a God, he isn’t an alien, he wasn’t seeking this out,” Kreisberg said then, explaining why they chose the Flash as the focus of the possible spin-off. “These powers came to him and his reactions to that feel very human and grounded…. Oliver Queen [Stephen Amell] is a very dark and tortured soul and Barry is not. I think it will be fun to see these two characters together because they have distinctly different world views.”
Grant Gustin will play the lightning-fast character also known as Barry Allen, and appear in three episodes of "Arrow" -- including the backdoor pilot.
Glee's Grant Gustin has landed the key role of The Flash/Barry Allen in The CW's backdoor pilot and potential Flash spinoff, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
Gustin will play the iconic comic book character and appear in three episodes of The CW's Arrow -- eight, nine and 20 -- the latter of which will serve as the backdoor pilot for a potential spinoff Flash series.
Arrow co-creators Greg Berlanti, Andrew Kreisberg as well as director David Nutter are behind the potential spinoff. Berlanti, Kreisberg and DC Entertainment's Geoff Johns -- a writer/consultant on Arrow -- will pen the script for Warner Bros. Television; Nutter will direct.
The potential Flash spinoff will be an origin story similar to what producers did with Stephen Amell starrer Arrow. All three Barry Allen episodes will be penned by Berlanti, Kreisberg and Johns.
"When we first meet Barry Allen, he's just a forensic scientist … an ordinary man," Kreisberg told reporters in July when the project was first announced. The character, like Amell's vigilante, will be grounded in reality and as realistic as possible. The first two episodes will see the character in Queen's home of Starling City, with the 20th providing a window to see Barry in The Flash's world. Barry Allen is described a Central City assistant police forensic investigator who arrives in Starling to look into a series of unexplained robberies that may have a connection to a tragedy in his past. A comic book fan boy, Barry is obsessed with the Arrow unaware that working with Oliver and Felicity to solve the crime has brought him right into the dangerous world of the vigilante.
'Arrow' scoop: Oliver's 'new and fun dynamic' with Laurel (and 'threesome' with Dig and Felicity)
On the Arrow season 1 DVD, which is out today, there’s talk of what the show might do down the line with Laurel (Katie Cassidy) as Black Canary. See an exclusive clip from the extras below. But in the meantime, producers will begin the Black Canary mythology in the Oct. 9 season 2 premiere with Caity Lotz in the role. “She’s a new player in town, a vigilante who avenges wronged women and seems to have a fixation on the Arrow and our team is trying to figure out why,” exec producer Andrew Kreisberg says. (Because it’s a mystery that may take a few episodes to solve, we’d encourage you not to read that particular spoiler online. It’ll be more fun to play along.)
As for what awaits Laurel in season 2, which picks up five months after the earthquake that leveled the Glades: “Both Laurel and Oliver are dealing with the death of Tommy. Even though Tommy had broken up with her, she really feels like she betrayed Tommy by sleeping with Oliver — and certainly after Tommy died trying to save her,” Kreisberg says. “So Laurel’s energy this season early on is to try to make amends for that. Unfortunately for Oliver, that means she wants to catch the vigilante in her new job as the District Attorney. So as she and Oliver are trying to deal with their respective grief at having betrayed and lost Tommy, their hunting each other at night. It’s a new and fun dynamic for us to put them in.”
Another fun new dynamic: The one between Oliver (Stephen Amell), Dig (David Ramsey) and Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards). ”One of the crew members actually pointed this out to us. He said, ‘The scripts are really funny this year.’ It’s not just Felicity. It’s having Felicity and Dig and Oliver together. Having that triumvirate,” Kreisberg says. “All three of the actors are pretty light on their feet. The characters have survived the Undertaking, and they’ve gotten into a bit of a rhythm. One of the things we’re really exploring is that they’ve really become friends. And they really have become family. There’s an easygoing camaraderie about them that allows them to enjoy what they’re doing a little bit more.”
Amell sees a change in Felicity. “They’ve grown her up a little bit, and she is definitely standing up more to Oliver this year,” he says. It’s intentional. “This season, it really is a, pardon the expression, threesome,” Kreisberg says. “Felicity feels like she should get her say sometimes, and she’s right…. Sometimes Felicity and Dig having a discussion or an argument is really kind of elucidating what’s going on inside Oliver’s head. It’s sort of the 21st century version of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy having an argument in sickbay.”
'Arrow' Books 'Firefly' Star Sean Maher in Villainous Role
Arrow is adding a dangerous new villain.
Firefly alum Sean Maher is joining season two of The CW's comic-book drama, The Hollywood Reporter has learned exclusively.
Set to appear in the 10th episode, Maher will guest star as the evil Mark Scheffer, better known as DC Comics supervillain Shrapnel, a serial bomber who places Starling City in a grip of terror and threatens the life of Sebastian Blood (Kevin Alejandro).
In the DC Comics universe, Shrapnel's backstory isn't fully known, though it has been established that he was at one point married with two daughters. Made of metal, Shrapnel's powers are superhuman strength and stamina.
The casting comes as Arrow continues to dig into the DC Comics vault, featuring comic-book characters like Black Canary, Bronze Tiger, Flash, Sin, Isabel Rochev and Sebastian Blood over the course of the season. It also marks the latest Firefly alum to join the series, with Summer Glau previously cast in a recurring role.
Maher is repped by SDB Partners and Principal Entertainment. Best known as Simon Tam on Joss Whedon's Firefly and Serenity, his credits include Make It or Break It, the short-lived The Playboy Club and Whedon's big-screen adaptation Much Ado About Nothing.
I really enjoy Arrow. I watch it the same night it's on which is unusual for me. I normally record everything to watch a day or days later. Yet as much as I like it, not really a show that I feel a need to talk about. It's fun, enjoyable and then I forget about it until the next week.
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