ARROW Star Emily Bett Rickards Reflects On Criticism She Faced For Playing Love Interest Felicity Smoak

ARROW Star Emily Bett Rickards Reflects On Criticism She Faced For Playing Love Interest Felicity Smoak

Arrow star Emily Bett Rickards has reflected on her time in The CW series, revealing she had to develop a thick skin in response to the complaints about her divisive role as love interest Felicity Smoak.

By JoshWilding - Mar 04, 2025 05:03 AM EST
Filed Under: Arrow

Shortly after Smallville concluded on The CW, the network launched its next superhero TV series in 2012 with Arrow. Stephen Amell was cast as Green Arrow and, as the years passed, his show spawned several spin-offs and a shared DC Universe later dubbed the "Arrowverse."

The show's achievements are undeniable but it had a lot of "CW-isms." Among them was giving Green Arrow a geeky female sidekick in Emily Bett Rickards' Felicity Smoak, the spiritual successor to Smallville's Chloe Sullivan. 

Felicity was soon established as Oliver Queen's true love, a decision that upset those eager to see his romance with Black Canary fully explored.

Doing the rounds to promote her new movie, Queen of the Ring, Rickards - who plays wrestling legend Mildred Burke in the biopic - reflected on needing a thick skin in response to the criticisms. 

"When I was on Arrow, I quickly realized how passionate comic book fans can be," she told TV Insider. "At one point, I had to have a really long talk with my therapist, asking, 'Okay, so what is all this energy? I don’t really understand it.'"

Explaining that she developed "skin like a rhino" and a "heart like a rose," Rickards added, "I think that criticism is passion, and all that passion is good...As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how special that is. Like, aren’t we allowed to get passionate about these things that we care about?"

Rickards received a fair bit of hate online from fans and, in a recent interview, Amell also talked about having to take a step back from social media.

"There used to be a lot of hypercritical people, specifically with 'Arrow.' I would see it and almost try to police it," Amell recalled. "Social media has become a zero-sum game - there is no winning. I learned the hard way. The internet’s not the real world."

"The first two or three years of 'Arrow,' I was gripping so tight. I was white-knuckling it," he continued. "The hours were long. By the time we got to the fifth episode of the first season, I’d worked more on that show than I’d ever worked on anything in my life."

"I was never a monster. I was never disrespectful - but I had a short fuse. And you learn as you go," Amell concluded.

There were once plans for an R-Rated Green Arrow movie called Supermax. It was set to follow Oliver Queen as he attempted to escape from a prison full of iconic DC Comics supervillains. Amell was never attached to that and the project failed to get off the ground. 

As for what the hero's DCU future looks like, James Gunn has said he's a Green Arrow fan and we'd bet on him recasting the role somewhere down the line (Amell, meanwhile, has traded a superhero costume for a suit in Suits L.A.).

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TheyDont
TheyDont - 3/4/2025, 6:17 AM
Her legs though
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/4/2025, 6:19 AM
I was never the biggest Felicity fan (she was just ok at best) but I don’t blame Rickards for it since she did her job and just followed the script even when the character was written truly badly such as Season 4.

Given the multiverse and different iterations of characters , I have grown to acknowledge and be fine with different directions & such even if I may not love the choice itself…

The love of this Oliver’s life was Felicity just as the love of Smallville’s Oliver’s life was Chloe while the comic one is Black Canary (hopefully in the DCU , we get the latter relationship properly explored on screen properly).

Either way , Oliver’s into blondes lol.

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Apophis71
Apophis71 - 3/4/2025, 6:27 AM
@TheVisionary25 - With how dark they went with Arrow at first I LIKED the option of going with a character like Felicity, it isn't like they completely ignored other relationships at differing points of his past (and played on those when dealing with his ex's) but a geeky girl in the chair with her heart on her sleeve was a good counterballance to him helping to evolve into a more grounded hero from his pure assassin start and even darker past.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 3/4/2025, 6:29 AM
@Apophis71 - I agree , that’s a good point

In the context of the show it worked
TK420
TK420 - 3/4/2025, 6:26 AM
Social media is the real issue.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 3/4/2025, 10:05 AM
@TK420 - Nah DC fans
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 2:43 PM
@UncleHarm1 - I think some from every fandom may have an issue on these type of things.
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 3/4/2025, 3:12 PM
@dagenspear - Yeah bunch of weirdos
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 6:13 PM
@UncleHarm1 - LORD willing, insulting isn't right. Jesus is Lord!
UncleHarm1
UncleHarm1 - 3/4/2025, 7:34 PM
@dagenspear - Hey, I identify as a weirdo member of some fandoms. I'm allowed to use that word.
FusionWarrior
FusionWarrior - 3/4/2025, 6:27 AM
I hope we get a Green Arrow and Black Canary Romance in the DCU!
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 3/4/2025, 7:10 AM
She's a bad mamma jamma.
jwholmes2011
jwholmes2011 - 3/4/2025, 8:00 AM
I never had a problem with her on Arrow. The one I couldn't stand and made me cringe was Iris on The Flash. Honestly, that version of Iris couldn't die fast enough - then when she did finally die (season8?) she came back again! agh!
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 2:44 PM
@jwholmes2011 - What did she do that was any worse than what Barry did, that made her dying worthy.
GarthRanzz
GarthRanzz - 3/4/2025, 8:09 AM
I hated how all these shows gave each hero a team with Supergirl having a whole bunch of non-powered characters running around. Guardian and Alex made zero sense when you have Supergirl around. Martian Manhunter and Mon-El at least made sense.
dracula
dracula - 3/4/2025, 9:15 AM
@GarthRanzz - really supergirl only had 2 non powered heroes
GarthRanzz
GarthRanzz - 3/12/2025, 10:45 PM
@dracula - Brainy, Guardian, her sister, and Dreamer looked ridiculous out there.
MisterBones
MisterBones - 3/4/2025, 8:13 AM
She is so damn fine
BritishMonkey
BritishMonkey - 3/4/2025, 8:33 AM
There was never anything wrong with her, it was the writers and showrunners sucking up to toxic shippers. That's what the problem always was.
ebbsc55
ebbsc55 - 3/5/2025, 9:50 PM
@BritishMonkey - I didn’t consider myself a toxic shipper. I don’t do comic books, never have and never will. So I didn’t care that they didn’t pair Oliver up with Black Canary. When people create movies, or in this case a tv series, I would be surprised if they followed the script if it was based on a book or in this case a comic book character. I liked the character Felicity and did not like Laurel. The writers made her whiny, self-centered and expecting sympathy cause her boyfriend cheated on her with her sister.
MadThanos
MadThanos - 3/4/2025, 8:41 AM
I respect this actress. She started off really well, and the issues are on the writer's side and not on her. In my opinion, Oliver Queen shouldn't be happy, and this relationship should have been platonic. This guy is ready to die to fulfill his duty.
HistoryofMatt
HistoryofMatt - 3/4/2025, 11:07 AM
@MadThanos - No, that's Batman. Oliver Queen and Green Arrow may feel like a Batman rip-off, but they are not the same. Their psychology is completely different. Oliver can walk away. Oliver can be happy. Batman can do neither.

And the biggest difference is how I refer to them here. I say Oliver and Batman. I don't say Oliver and Bruce. Oliver is still Oliver inside and outside of the mask. There was no more Bruce Wayne after his parents were killed, there is only Batman.
MadThanos
MadThanos - 3/4/2025, 11:55 AM
@HistoryofMatt - yes, the comic book version of the GA. The Arrow is exactly like the Batman.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 2:49 PM
@MadThanos -
@HistoryofMatt -

A dimestore Batman maybe.
NoDaysOff
NoDaysOff - 3/4/2025, 10:14 AM
To be fair as the series went on i found all the cast became quite annoying...aside from Diggle that is.

Felicity was nice to look at though.
Batmangina
Batmangina - 3/4/2025, 10:38 AM
I forgot that show and more importantly, how hot she was.
MasterMix
MasterMix - 3/4/2025, 10:53 AM
I liked Felicity at first. She was funny and cute. Their mistake was giving her too much attention. When they inevitably reboot Green Arrow, please do a proper romance with Black Canary.
DocSpock
DocSpock - 3/4/2025, 11:43 AM

She is HOT!

Probably the only complaint people had regarding her in the pandering twisted ArrowVerse was the fact that the show dared to have a white man and a white woman in a romantic relationship.

dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 2:50 PM
@DocSpock - Get out of here with the political obsessed gibberish, please.
DocSpock
DocSpock - 3/4/2025, 6:12 PM
@dagenspear -

What is political about that?
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 6:14 PM
@DocSpock - Making a random thing about people not liking a white man and white woman together when that was never brought up at all, and I can't remember a time when it was, so I think it was a random insertion of political thinking.
dagenspear
dagenspear - 3/4/2025, 2:43 PM
I think that is a fairly relazxed response from her, which I like. Even if I had criticisms with her performance, I don't think the actress was the main issue with this character, and bashing that actress, LORD willing, was wrong. The writing, to me, made that character poor after season 1, like I think nearly all the characters were used. The show, to me, had a problem with either Oliver acting liking a massive jerk at times, or other characters being used for the needless melodrama.
grif
grif - 3/4/2025, 3:06 PM
i sucked and id do it again

Cass
Cass - 3/4/2025, 3:16 PM
I didnt mind her in the earlier stuff, i feel like it was the showrunners and scriptwriters who didnt know what to do with her. She just cried all the time and seemed to get in the way a lot. Coming off the simpler times when Oliver was gettting on with straight up murdering bad people, it felt like she was slowing the show down.

A shame she wasn't given something better to do.
tanstaafl28
tanstaafl28 - 3/4/2025, 4:32 PM
I always thought she was the complete package: brains, looks, and just the right amount of sass. Too bad she got all wishy-washy on Ollie and decided to end their relationship.

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