IN PROFILE: Stephen Amell – Marathon Man

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Finding His Stride

Like any decent athlete would, Amell doesn’t dwell on his failures, he learns from them. So, after a cooling period, he got up, dusted himself off and found his stride again. And Los Angeles would once more prove to be the move he needed both professionally and privately. As his career was picking up, he met his future wife Cassandra Jean at a party after admiring her on Mad Men. Now happily married for 4 years and proud father of daughter Mavi, he certainly doesn’t regret the hurdles that got him where he is now. If 2007 and 2009 were packed with missteps, 2011 was the year that put him on the right track for success. He lined up show after show, becoming a regular on Hung, following up with charming Amy Brenneman in Private Practice and playing the chilling real life villain Joran Van Der Sloot in a TV movie about Natalee Holloway. One thing Amell is not, is an overnight success; he sure paid his dues and lived by the 10,000-hour rule. “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation”, he likes to quote. So, when the audition for Arrow came his way, he nailed it, pure and simple.

But with the show entering its fifth season and nearing its end (unless it turns into Supernatural with a 12 year tour of duty), one wonders what Amell will do next. This spring, he embarked on his first worldwide tour to promote Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows. The Michael Bay production where he is cast as vigilante Casey Jones seems like a natural progression if not a repeat on the big screen of his heroics on Arrow. As popcorn movies go it is enjoyable and it certainly didn’t hurt his career since the movie grossed enough money that another follow up is conceivable. Amell is now signed up for an untold numbers of Turtles movies and being envisioned as someone you can trust with the future of a franchise is no small feat indeed. Nevertheless, it can also be binding. Between that and Arrow, the competitive Canadian will now have little time to venture elsewhere. And he still needs THE project that would make him a household name.

Could this be film Code 8? With cousin Robbie, he is the executive producer of the impressive Sci-fi short and they bedazzled the industry by raising 1.7 million US dollars through crowdfunding to turn it into a feature. It’s just a testament of the clout the Amells now have when it comes to social media. Stephen is extremely Facebook savvy and recently enthusiastically joined Snapchat (he’s also present on Twitter even though he dislikes the platform). His 5 million and counting Facebook followers undoubtedly now play a part in discussions with studios and entertainment agencies alike. Sure, he had to audition for Turtles, but I’ll take the bet his social media presence didn’t hurt when it came to casting either. One might argue it certainly helps him more than his capacity to do his own stunts. You can hire a stunt double but the way he can rally millions behind a project is something money just can’t buy. A testament to his intelligence (and the Canadian school system), Stephen is one of those rare stars who handles their own pages (even if he now has help to screen through its thousands of posts). The Amells can spell and do not confuse their and there, thank you very much.

Code 8 with its super heroes a la X-Men sounds exciting and could potentially change the way movies are produced if successful. But no matter how the film fares, Stephen will very likely only play a small acting part in it, given how time-consuming Arrow is. Especially now he is expected to guest star in every DC property he helped launched on The CW. So we can only live in hope he will soon encounter THE feature that will showcase his acting chops and not just his bulging muscles. The man has range and sometimes his looks make it easy to forget. Arrow had a good run but when it’s over, here’s to Stephen Amell finishing his last lap with a bang. Let’s hope he finds his Top Gun, or his Magnolia. He, who idolizes Tom Cruise to the point of naming his daughter Mavi after the character Maverick, can only dream of the same success. Good thing he doesn’t belong to a cult, because with his natural charisma it’s always hard not to buy what he’s selling. The insurance company he used to work for must regret his leaving every day. But once Stephen Amell starts running, he’s hard to catch up with. So, I guess we’ll see him on the finish line with his trademark smile, a sparkle in his blue eyes, a little grey around the edges maybe but if we’re lucky, he’ll still drop the shirt… and put ‘dadbod’ to shame.

Arrow returns to the CW (U.S.) and Sky1 (U.K.) in October for Season 5.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows is currently showing in cinemas.

Code 8 is due to begin production in 2017.

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