Stephen Amell Calls Crisis on Earth-X '4-Hour Escape'

Arrow star Stephen Amell has not just one, but two roles to play in this year's Arrowverse crossover "Crisis on Earth-X." In addition to his regular role as Star City's resident hero Green Arrow, he will play his character's evil doppelganger from Earth-X. As such, he'll appear in the four-episode quite a bit -- so much so that he may have even had "the most screen time in all four episodes." During a set visit, Amell discussed the logistics of filming the multiversal event and compared it to the Super Bowl, describing it as "a four-hour escape" and more.

"What I can tell you about this year is you know the order of the episodes, as in Supergirl, Arrow, Flash, Legends [of Tomorrow]? That doesn't mean shit," he explained. "You can't tell what episode is what episode. The first episode, it centers on everyone coming together in episode 1 for Barry and Iris' wedding. So you're collecting everyone from all over the place, and then it's really effectively their story throughout the first hour, which would indicate that it's a Flash episode, except it's not. I think it's weird."

"I would wager to guess that I have the most screen time in all four episodes of the crossover, so that's been something," he shared. "Not to get too inside baseball here, but they have made it bigger than ever. When we conceived of the crossovers back in Season 3 of Arrow and Season 1 of Flash, it was like, 'Okay, I'm going to go, and I'm going to shoot on The Flash for four days. Fine.' The crossovers this year took up six full weeks of shooting."

"I think that in order for us to continue down this path, we, as productions, and The CW, as the network, and Warner Bros., as the studio, are going to have to fundamentally, like, re-conceive how we execute these because this sort of broke the schedule mold," he continued. "I mean it just simply didn't fit. It wasn't that it was 14-hour days every day, it was a very long day. Furthermore, I think that if we're going to shoot it like a big four-hour movie, we have to board it like a big four-hour movie. We have to prioritize the schedules of the people that are going to be working the most, if that's me, if that's Melissa [Benoist], if that's Caity Lotz, if that's Grant [Gustin]. It's going to change year over year based off of story. The payoff is that I've seen one cut of one episode, and it's just... It's like a four-hour escape."

"There are some through-line storylines like Oliver and Felicity's relationship, and Barry and Iris' relationship, and what's going on with Sara, what's going on with Victor and Franz [Drameh, who plays Jax]. It really is, for the first time, it's an event," he said. "It's not a crossover anymore. Call it the crossover if you want, but it's kind of like calling the Super Bowl just a football game. Yeah, sure, they play football, but there's so much other stuff that goes on with it. It's an event."

"I really enjoyed Oliver and Kara's stuff -- but not in the way that you might think," he teased. "Just in general, I just got a chance to do some, much in the same way that last year during the crossover, we had our 100th episode, we put ourselves in this alternate reality, and we got to have these exchanges you really shouldn't be able to have, we get to do that in the crossover, which is great. Which is what you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed to think, 'Okay, within the context of a story that people are going to enjoy, that makes sense, what people do fans want to see interact with one another?' That's a long list, but I feel like we got to execute it this year more than ever."

Asked if it will mess with Oliver's head to see someone else in the Prometheus suit, he said, "Yeah. That's a weird thing. I think the payoff there for that was really worth it and lead to, certainly, one my favorite scenes of the entire season." Amell's answer suggests that Josh Segarra's Adrian Chase won't be the one underneath the hood if and when Earth-X's Prometheus removes his mask.

This year’s four-part crossover “Crisis on Earth-X” will air across two nights, beginning Monday, Nov. 27 with Supergirl and Arrow (on a special night for one week only) and concluding Tuesday, Nov. 28 with The Flash and Legends of Tomorrow.

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Arrow's Amell Compares Crisis on Earth-X Crossover to the Super Bowl