IGN Interviewed Justin Hartley, Smallville's Green Arrow. Here are the important points he revealed about his character in Smallville.
About the return of Smallville this Friday:
Justin Hartley: Yeah, it's good. It's a lot about [how] Oliver has gone down this dark path and has sort of rebounded and found himself again, and everything is going well. He's taking it one day at a time, and he's still a really delicate person. And then this guy from his past comes back and reminds him of what he was like, and it starts to feel really familiar to Oliver. Boy, I'm making it sound like they're a couple, aren't I? Yeah, and then they cuddle! No. [Laughs]
Oliver's trying to explain to him, "Look, this is not who I am anymore." And this guy's coming back, saying, "Well, you can't get away from who you are. You can't run away from your true calling, who you really are. This is who you are; remember this." Oliver kind of rejects him and he goes after Oliver's friends and Lois and forces Oliver into a bad situation. He's forced to go after this guy, this Dark Archer and meet him face to face.
I think what you learn -- that is a beautiful part about Oliver's character -- is this is gonna be something that torments him his whole life, and it's not something that he's gonna get over; it's something that he's gonna have to deal with. And Oliver doesn't deal with things; he ignores them. So this is something that he can't ignore, which is kind of neat.
The episode involving the return of the girl "Speedy"
Hartley: That's fun, because usually he's the one kind of messing everything up, and it's really actually funny that he's trying to teach someone how to be, how to function. It's just like, "Are you serious? What qualifies him?" But they've got a good relationship. They've got a good thing going. She's one of the people that the Dark Archer goes after. Once he goes after her it kind of sends Oliver over the edge, and that's when he decides, "Well, I've gotta go deal with this guy," to protect her.
About the much awaited Justice Society TV Movie - "Absolute Justice"
Hartley: It's gonna be great.
It was great. We knew that Geoff [Johns] was writing back-to-back episodes, so we knew they were going to tie in together. I didn't know they were going to air them back to back in one night, like a movie, until we got into the second one. And luckily for us, Tom [Welling] was directing it. He's been there for almost every scene of the past nine years, so he's got a good feel for the show. When Glen [Winter] directed the first one, and he's got a great feel for shots and the way the show should look, and Tom's got a great feel for the way the show should look and feel and Geoff wrote it – you're basically just there along for the ride. When you've got people taking care of you like that, it kind of makes things easy for you. It's fun.
Let's see, there's one scene where you have, and forgive me if I'm missing anybody, but you have Green Arrow, Stargirl – I don't think you have Dr. Fate, but maybe you do – Hawkman, Clark, Icicle's in the room... They're all battling, and they're all doing their special little tricks at the same time and it's all these ramping shots; it looks like a comic book, like you're flipping through a comic book. It's really cool.
I just have to say that the show still has legs. And I won't get tired of saying change it already to METROPOLIS and have Superman wear his colors, and you got me for another 9 seasons.
-ACCESS out. Godspeed and MABUHAY!