Speaking with Digital Spy, Colton Haynes talked about how he prepared for his role as Roy Harper in Arrow. Haynes said that he doesn't know very much about comics, but his brother was able to help him with researching for the role:
Thanks to my brother, Clinton, he’s a huge comic book fan. I wasn’t quite aware how big Roy Harpers character…how big the fan reaction was to it, then eventually I started reading and becoming so interested in his story. You never know, I mean, there’s so many interpretations of Roy Harper. You don’t know if he’s going to lose an arm, become a junkie, or be Speedy or Red Arrow. It’s just fascinating. Now I’ve done my research and my brother wasn’t as excited as me doing the other shows until now. Now he feels like since he gives me Intel on all the comic books that he’s a secret writer. So thank you Clinton.
We will see Roy‘s background explored in this season of Arrow. We’ll see Haynes take on a larger role and eventually become a hero alongside Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen, but we still aren't sure who is going to become Arrow's sidekick:
When I came on the show, Willa had an idea she was going to become Speedy. Then I came on the show and she was like ‘OK are you the one that’s going to ruining my changes of doing this? I want to fight crime!’ They’ve been putting me through training. Each day Willa’s like ‘When am I going to do this?’ You never know, but in different comic books Speedy was a girl. And with Roy Harper, like I said, you never know which way he’s going to go. I can say that I don’t think they’d be putting me through training for nothing.
You can watch the
full interview in the video embedded below.