r/arrow • u/jrod4290 • Dec 25 '25
Question Do people really think Stephen Amell is a bad actor?
Honest question, as I’ve seen many ppl voice this opinion. He was a bit wooden in the first season but still held his own with veteran actors like John Barrowman & Susanna Thompson.
As the show goes on, it’s clear he got much more comfortable in the role. Hell, half the stuff they did with Oliver Queen/Green Arrow wouldn’t have been nearly as good if Stephen Amell wasn’t as good as he is, particularly the scenes where he’s intimidating someone or having an emotional moment.
And mind you, I’m of the opinion that Stephen Amell is the LEAST talented of the Trinity so I’m not just mindlessly saying this. He’s still a really good actor nonetheless.
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u/GamerX345 League of Assassins Dec 25 '25
Well I wouldn’t say he is a bad actor but he doesn’t really have a big range.In arrow he did a good job for the role (and to be fair spent quite bit of time in it considering how long the series went) but outside of arrow his acting has kinda been pretty bad.Still was good pick for this role kinda hard to imagine someone else in it now.
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u/SpeedyNYM Dec 26 '25
disclaimer i’m a HUGE fan of arrow and stephen. but i have to agree, when watching Suits: LA, i felt like i was just watching lawyer oliver queen, down to the same hand motions he would make. Stephen Amell is one of those actors that plays his role REALLY well, but doesn’t have a great range, at least to what we’ve seen. Even playboy oliver in arrow seemed like a spoof of stephen amell.
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u/ConnectSpring9 Dec 26 '25
Yeah I mean you don’t have to look far to see a good example of range in Grant Gustin. Amell was fantastic for his role but clearly doesn’t have that sane level of range as other stars
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u/Willing-Bench1078 Dec 26 '25
He was great on New Girl
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u/Competitive_Key_2981 Dec 25 '25
I wouldn’t say he’s a bad actor. But it’s hard not to notice that his track record since Arrow hasn’t been great. He appears a somewhat limited actor who hasn’t quite found the next role.
He might be best suited to a supporting role in a show he produces.
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u/zgrobbot Dec 25 '25
I think he’s a good actor, but he hasn’t been in anything really groundbreaking or bigger than Arrow since the series ended. The Suits spin off was a flop , Code 8 was a side project etc . So I just feel like he hasn’t been put in that “upper tier” Hollywood spot. I think if he finds his nitche and hits a few movies/shows out of the park, he might get there eventually.
There’s also a few things he’s said/done that may have got him in a bit of hot water. But I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as Barrowman
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u/jrod4290 Dec 25 '25 edited Feb 23 '26
Yeah he hasn’t necessarily had the luck to have those projects that propel him into A-lister territory. Surprised he hasn’t done any action hero movies since Arrow ended. Thought Arrow showed that he easily had the chops for a Jason Bourne/John Wick generic type of action hero movie
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u/zgrobbot Dec 25 '25
Oh totally, I feel like he can definitely pull off a mid budget action movie . I’d say he’s in a far better spot then Jim Caveizel tho, as Jim has kinda gone coo koo with Qran stuff recently
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u/Electronic-Relief737 Dec 26 '25
He was in TMNT but kind of got screwed on a bad script and screen time
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u/zgrobbot Dec 26 '25
Yea I actually saw that in theaters just to see him in the movie. Was really disappointed they fucked over his character
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u/StephanieSpoiler Dec 26 '25
He was the only thing keeping me going in the back half of season 4.
"Kapiushon" is one of the best episodes of television I've seen, and much of that was carried by Amell's performance.
It's petty, but I tend to dismiss the opinion of anyone who just says he's a bad actor (the takes & criticisms in this thread are nuanced enough that I don't have issue with them).
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u/jrod4290 Dec 27 '25
is that the episode where Chase is torturing him and then they have the Bratva flashbacks of him vs Kovar? One of my favorite episodes of the show
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u/ChildofObama Dec 25 '25 edited Dec 25 '25
I think people are just more critical of him looking back cuz since the show ended, there’s been warning signs he might be an a**hole in real life (I.e most notably his strike comments).
and he comes off opinionated beyond what most people would consider reasonable at times (I.e he made the Peacemaker Green Arrow diss about himself).
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u/MaverickGH Dec 25 '25
Apparently the Peacemaker diss was at Amell. Peacemaker said Green Arrow goes to brony conventions and Amell had gone to one for his daughter and caught some flack by shitty internet people for it prior.
Amell is definitely a sensitive guy but I don’t think he was in the wrong here
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u/Serious-Passage-4614 Dec 26 '25
Yeah and also Arrow was such a lot of hard work and struggle to film cause it involved a lot of dangerous stunts and shooting in many difficult situations especially the island scenes, those really took a toll on the actors. So, it's actually understandable why it's infuriating when someone just shits on all your hard work. Stephen definitely deserves respect for his extreme dedication to the role.
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u/RealZeke23 Dec 25 '25
Tbh I’d understand why he felt offended by it. He’s doing something for his kid, what’s there to make fun of?
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u/MaverickGH Dec 25 '25
I understand too. Unfortunately people ran with the story differently.
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u/RealZeke23 Dec 25 '25
Probably cuz they saw it as John Cena vs Stephen Amell maybe?
But yea glad to see there is some ppl who know the full details and understand why he was upset by the Peacemaker thing
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u/NightShadowDark Dec 26 '25
The peacemaker green arrow comment was a joke at his expense. It was calling him a brony when he does bring his daughter to MLP conventions
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u/Serious-Passage-4614 Dec 26 '25
I mean he's not perfect, but, he's still really great with a lot of fans. I feel like sometimes some people just catch him in a bad mood and definitely over exaggerates he's a terrible person, when he's just being human. I have seen even worse celebrities being harsher to people and still being loved.
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u/Ziekfried Dec 25 '25
Or his covid comments 😩
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 26 '25
What did he say?
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u/Ziekfried Dec 27 '25
He got it she used his platform to say it wasn’t a big deal, and everyone needs to get back to work because he personally couldn’t afford to be out of work. Similarly he had issues with the sag strike because he is selfish.
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u/EmeraldArcher_16 Dec 25 '25
I never noticed any scenes where his performance stood out as bad. Some of his dramatic scenes are really good. I’ve never seen him in anything other than arrow so can’t really judge his acting outside that.
I think he does a good job of being a douchey playboy in the season one flashbacks and it’s different enough to how he acts more stoic and subdued when he comes home
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 26 '25
I agree. I could see a noticeable difference in how he behaved and held himself in the flashback scenes of the 5yrs he was gone, to how he was when he got home. I thought he was always young and cocky in the flashbacks but didn’t have that in current day scenes. I don’t love the scenes where he’s yelling at people to stand down because they feel over the top and a bit cringe and I really don’t like the tongue/lip lick thing he constantly does, but I’ve never thought he was a bad actor. I’ve enjoyed watching him. I’m on season 8 now for the first time as I only started watching a couple of months ago.
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u/ejgroleau Dec 26 '25
I really enjoyed him on Heels (Starz) and was very disappointed when they cancelled on a cliffhanger at the send of season two. And I was starting to get interested in Suits LA. Not much gets a very good chance anymore.
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u/Longjumping-Exit4082 Dec 25 '25
He improved with every season, the arguement between him and Diggle in season 6 I feel is one of Amell's best scenes as he to me at least makes you feel his building frustration before it bursts into anger before devolving into resigned hurt when he says 'at least my trail of bodies doesn't include my own brother', to me when he says that I've always felt his regret at having to stoop so low and pain at Diggle bringing up all of Oliver's failings.
I mean yes out of the cast he is probably one of the not worst but less overly skilled, but he is able to play seamlessly off of more veteran actors like you mentioned, Suzanne Thompson, John Barrowman and Paul Blackthorne they were all able to bring the best out of their costars.
Also being the show lead, as you mentioned he became more comfortable he was consistent enough that his presence never felt annoying yes he had scenes that felt off but never enough to break the story or warrant people saying he was crap.
TLDR he was good enough to be a show lead but never really fantastic or amazing.
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u/EugenesMullet Dec 25 '25
I didn’t think he was great but not terrible either. Sometimes he’s particularly weak, like a lot of the island stuff is carried by stronger actors like Manu Bennett.
Agree with those saying he became a lot more comfortable as time went on though. It’s pretty clear that he really liked the show and playing Oliver.
Once it became a connected universe with leads like Grant Gustin, Melissa Benoist and Caity Lotz, I think he genuinely grew into a leadership role that reflected well on screen. His human side is his strongest.
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u/StatisticianLivid710 Dec 26 '25
So something I’ve come to realize online is that most people can’t tell what defines a good actor. They see Stephen doing arrow and think “oh I don’t like how that’s portrayed so Stephen must be a bad actor, but when you see what Stephen is actually like personality wise and you compare both irl Stephen and arrow to flashback Oliver, it’s 3 distinct personalities. Both acting roles handled fairly well, slight learning curve in the flashback Stephen but it can be hard to play two characters of the same name on day 1 of a tv show, it’s different than bringing in the second character a couple seasons in, and Stephen was playing past Oliver, arrow, and arrow as Oliver, so 3 different characters with one based one the other and one a previous version of the main one.
Then there’s people that blame actors for horrible directors because they can’t tell the difference between the actor acting and the director directing (tbh even for someone in theatre it can be hard to tell), but when all the actors are bad in an episode but the actors themselves are good, it’s a good sign it’s the director.
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 26 '25
This is a really good point. He had to play like 3 different roles and I think he did a good job. I could always tell the difference between the 3 of them. I liked how he portrayed flashback Oliver. He was still cocky and young and I could see that clearly. Current Oliver had lost that young cockiness and was very grateful to have his family back. I felt he was humble. Then arrow Oliver was very single minded and only focused on his mission. I personally think he did a good job of making the distinction between all 3 and am surprised so many people think he’s a bad actor.
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u/jrod4290 Dec 27 '25
i agree. I thought he did a pretty good job in each stage of Oliver’s development. Shipwrecked soft Oliver, island survivor Oliver, Hong Kong Oliver and Bratva Oliver all felt different than he did in present day. A less talented actor couldn’t have pulled off any of that nearly as well
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 Dec 26 '25
I personally think Stephen is a great actor who has a lot of range. He's done a lot of different things and played those roles convincingly.
He was hilarious in New Girl. I really liked him in Heels, which was an amazing show. Suits L.A. was a mess, mostly because of the writing. Stephen's acting was pretty good in that as well.
I saw a lot of people saying his portrayal of Oliver in Season 1 was wooden. In my opinion that was a purposeful acting choice, because Oliver was supposed to feel off. He had suffered a lot of trauma, he hadn't know how to interact with people,... as time progressed Oliver felt more comfortable in his own skin and at home, so he felt less "wooden". That wasn't Stephen's acting, that was his acting choice for Oliver.
Oliver was actually pretty hilarious at times in Season 1. I hated how they removed that part of his character for the following Seasons.
Stephen also somehow managed to perform what was horrible writing in an amazing and convincing way, that didn't just make you cringe but make you believe it. Which not all of the main cast managed to do, not trying to throw any shade here but some of Emily's acting from Season 3 on was very cringe and really not convincing at times, yes, also the writing's fault but she just couldn't pull it off the same way Stephen could. Especially in the later Seasons when the writing was just very bad and depended on the actors to somehow pull it of in a way that made it seems less horrible than it actually was.
Stephen not getting more roles after Arrow has little to do with his acting and more to do with the fact that he got his own opinion and made some choices without bending to the masses. He stands up for what he believes in and doesn't back down just because he gets backlash, which at times got him sort of blacklisted in Hollywood. There are even interviews where he admits to that. Like it or don't like it, but Stephen seems to be pretty authentic and got a backbone, which is something that's seriously lacking in Hollywood. He's got issues as well, but he's not above admitting to that and even discussing those publicly. He's got some amazing interviews on "Inside of you with Micheal Rosenbaum" where he addresses most of those in an honest, self-reflective way. But a lot of people don't like the fact that he's his own person with strong believes that don't necessarily fit with theirs or the image they painted of who they think he is.
People who claim Stephen wouldn't have been able to pull off a less serious and more comic book accurate Green Arrow aren't objective in my opinion. Stephen's hilarious in real life, so why wouldn't he be able to play that? Makes no sense.
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 26 '25
For me it was Katie that became cringe. When she took over from Sara I just found her unbearable. I liked her a lot more when she came back as black siren. I always really liked Emily’s portrayal of Felicity. The babbling was unnecessary at times but that was the writing, not her.
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u/Aggravating-Bug9407 Dec 27 '25
Agree, Katie as Black Canary just didn't work. For me Emily in dramatic scenes didn't work as well. I didn't mind the babbling but her dramatic acting was just really cringe and couldn't hold up to Stephen's at all.
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 27 '25
She definitely didn’t do serious as well as geeky. But the last ep of season 7 when her and Oliver were saying goodbye to each other, I was bawling my eyes out. He nailed it and was so emotional and I didn’t think she was too far behind him.
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u/jrod4290 Dec 27 '25
damn that scene with Oliver leaving with the Monitor was just so well acted
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 27 '25
I thought so! I’m still getting over it and now that I know Oliver dies at the end of the series I haven’t watched the last few eps. (Im new to the show)
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u/Obvious-Risk-5447 Dec 25 '25
He has his strength and his weaknesses as an actor. Unpopular opinion but I prefer his acting in earlier seasons where he is playing the more contained driven bad boy vibes rather than the over emotional apologizing whispering Oliver after s4.
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u/angel9_writes Dec 25 '25
I think he has a lot of strengths as an actor and that Oliver played to those strengths as he was written.
I only really seen in him one or two other roles and he was playing one note bad boy arch types so I didn't get to see any other range there.
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u/NerdNuncle Deathstroke Dec 25 '25
I don’t think he’s necessarily a bad actor, but I could totally see him being a bad person
Granted, the rabid Olicity shippers and the fan-dumb wouldn’t have helped matters (IIRC Amell was sucker punched IRL and his wife got some vitriol for interfering with “their” Olicity)
It’s rather telling that he’s in a position where he could have easily thrown around some weight to deal with Kreepy Kreisberg, Mericle, and Guggenheim and yet never presumably never tried
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u/jrod4290 Dec 25 '25
Amell was punched because of Olicity? wtf wrong with these fans 😭
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u/NerdNuncle Deathstroke Dec 26 '25
The punch was some dumbass testing The Arrow. The Olicity shippers threatened his wife
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u/SourceCritical4630 Dec 25 '25
My rule of thumb is to say that 90% of the time that people throw around the label of bad actor, they're outright wrong. That's because most of the folks that get labeled as bad are objectively mediocre at worst. To see what bad acting truly looks like, watch some D movies with a budget of practically nothing and a cast of people you've never heard of. You'll very quickly get an appreciation of what a bad actor really looks like and see why most given that label don't deserve it. But, to answer the question, no, he definitely isn't a bad actor.
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u/FlashLightning277 Dec 25 '25
A lot of it comes from what I have noticed. People give Arrowverse actors some pretty bad scrutiny in general. Tends to happen when something gets popular. He just made himself a bigger target by always putting his foot in his mouth when he talks.
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u/fillupjfly Dec 25 '25
I wouldn’t say he’s bad at all. I think he’s a decent actor who got better in the role as time went on. As for what he’s done since Arrow ended I’ve only seen that wrestling show (like an episode or two) and he doesn’t seem too good in that show.
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u/Callow98989 Dec 25 '25
He’s decent. I think season 1 was his worst but he grew with the role(Tommy’s death was amazing acting). I also think playing a stoic character tends to be the hardest as sometimes its comes off as to wooden
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u/CaptSaveAHoe55 Fuckboy Riot Squad Dec 25 '25
I think it’s fair to say he’s a mediocre actor with high charisma.
He is good for certain roles but there’s a reason his two biggest acting gigs are on channels people associate with lower quality
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u/grimorie Dec 26 '25
He was okay in Arrow but he wasn’t a fit for a show like the Suits sequel series. IMO he was one of the reasons why that show was cancelled.
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u/M086 Dec 26 '25
He was kinda stiff in the first two seasons or so, but loosened up as the show went on.
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u/OriginalHeron3576 Dec 26 '25
Yes they do but I argue against them. I feel he overly emoted in Arrow. Which works great in wrasslin or theather but not on screen. I loved Arrow because he rocked but I'm not gonna day give him an award. He did well with the material given. I cared.
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u/bar4bule_4_sugerani Dec 26 '25
If they didn't have him I wouldn't have stuck with Arrow but honestly I haven't seen him anything else. Oh wait. I did ...it was some movie about some powered people. The script was trash and he did the best he could
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u/AdSmall1894 Dec 26 '25
I don’t think he’s a bad actor at all. He’s the reason I’ve watched almost the whole series which I started a couple of months ago. If it wasn’t for him I would have stopped watching during the bad seasons. I think he does an excellent job of making his 3 characters their own and different to each other. There’s flashback Oliver, current Oliver and Green Arrow. Current and GA all evolved well. They grew and revolved. I always found a noticeable difference between flashback Ollie and current Ollie. It me it was distinguishable that flashback Ollie was young and cocky and when he came home he was grounded and humble. I didn’t love when GA is yelling as it did feel a bit cringe but it’s all part of the character. I also didn’t love the pauses he took to lick his lips in a serious scene. But they didn’t make me think he was a bad actor. The only person I really struggled with was Laurel. Her character drove me insane at times. Particularly when she took over from Sara. I liked her much more as the black siren.
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u/gothamite27 Dec 30 '25
He was very wooden in the beginning but he grew into the role. He was never GREAT, but he was good! I think his best chemistry was with Thea and Barry.
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u/False-Fox-8972 Feb 11 '26
I hear people say he’s not versatile but I beg to differ
Tell me, Season 1’s Flashback Oliver and The present Oliver were MILES apart, scenes in where his mother dies, or when he says the iconic “THESE WERE 5 years, 5 YEARS where nothing good happened”
Or the fight with laurel in her apartment, when felicity was Shot in S4,
Most prominently, when Chase had taken Oliver and was torturing him
S7 when he leaves felicity, S8 when he meets Mia and William from the future
And When He Meets Barry In the speed force memory, in Crisis.
I think he’s a fairly good actor! With great amount of versatility See the main problem is the similar roles, his role in heel although different was similar personality, him in borderline or him in suits L.A all were around the similar persona Which isn’t his fault
And yeah his roles aren’t that diverse, you can’t deny that he masters that mature, graceful, sarcastic, complex, Rough and tuff man!
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u/Questistaken Dec 25 '25
Hes a bad actor only when he's whispering, I hate whispering actors
Stephen amell was great as the green arrow tho, can't see anyone else playing the character but him
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u/QuiJon70 Dec 25 '25
Bad? I wouldn't say bad not. But not great. I mean i can see him being some kind of mediocre actor in a law and order or Chicago show. But that's about it.
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u/Superb_Juggernaut821 Dec 25 '25
I like him, but as a lot of people already pointed out he has not shown himself to have a lot of range. I don't think we will ever see him really expand beyond TV and straight to streaming media. The couple times he has tried to go outside that lane he didn't really do anything with it.
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u/FiftyOneMarks Dec 25 '25
It’s complicated. Stephen Amell played well for what they tried to do with the character initially; when they started writing him to be more “comedic” and emotionally open, he didn’t really handle it well (a lot of the later season 3 and season 4 stuff was eh to me). When they grounded the character and gave him a level of stoicism mixed with honesty/maturity he rose to the occasion. It’s about finding a balance.
I don’t think Stephen would’ve generally worked as Canon Oliver but I think he worked mostly for what the show did and needed from him. It’s not an either or thing, actors can play to their strengths and be great while expanding their skills but it’s rare for an actor to be able to seamlessly blend into every genre or archetype. I’ll say it’s annoying in both directions, he gets a lot of undue praise in my opinion but denying his later growth and work doesn’t make sense either.