It was inevitable that Oliver Queen would meet his end during “Crisis On Infinite Earths,” although few would have predicted it to be as early as the conclusion of the first part. Many people were left frustrated by the development, one of whom was Stephen Amell himself, although his reaction was due to the circumstances of filming the scene.
As a guest on Michael Rosenbaum’s podcast Inside of You, he talked about a number of topics, and near the end of the recording there was a section for listener questions, one of which asked him if shooting crossovers was fun. His response was candid, talking about how working within the confines of schedules can affect the scope of what can be produced and the filming of what’s decided upon, and revealed that due to the pressures of the production, he ended up delivering his dying words with none of his illustrious co-stars present.
“They were trying to wrap Caity and Grant before I shot coverage of the scene where I died. I blame no one for this, but this is a scene with me from Arrow, that’s taking place on Supergirl with a Supergirl crew, with demands on both Grant and Caity who are on Flash and Legends, who are on a different schedule than the crossover because they’re shooting different shit, and they’re trying to pull them so that Flash and Legends don’t mess up their day the next day. Meanwhile, the fucking Green Arrow is laying on a gurney trying to deliver his lines to something other than a fucking tennis ball. So, there are lots of scenes where I’m acting and there just aren’t other actors there, and that is just not an acceptable way of creating the best product, from my perspective. I think it’s a little disrespectful to the actors and their process, speaking personally.”
In the episode itself, the wider shots of the scene that saw Oliver lie dying certainly have everyone there, but his actual lines are delivered in close up with nobody else visible in the shot aside from the hands of (presumably) an anonymous stand-in to play the exceptionally well manicured nails of Mia seen on his shoulder.
The lack of anyone around Oliver is not apparent, the magic of editing creating the illusion that everyone is present during the scene, a large part of which is a testament to Amell’s acting talents that he can deliver such an emotionally charged speech with nobody to play off of. Arrowverse EP Marc Guggenheim has stated that the scale of the crossover will not be as big next year, so hopefully the actors will feel able to work to the best of their abilities and schedules need not be stretched so far.
