Stephen Amell shared some harsh words for fans of the popular Arrowverse meme that repurposes the grave of his Arrow character, Oliver Queen.
The meme began with a behind-the-scenes photo of The Flash star Grant Gustin throwing up a peace sign over the grave of Oliver Queen from the eighth and final season of Arrow. After the photo's first appearance online, it immediately gained traction as a meme, with users typically replacing Oliver's name on the grave and captioning Gustin to produce some hilarious results. Most recently, Twitter user Mike Williams shared a version of the meme in which the Twitter platform flashes the peace sign over the grave of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, which all suffered a temporary outage on Oct. 4. Amell retweeted the meme to express his distaste, writing, "Could everyone who repurposes this photo kindly fuck off."
In the past, the longtime Arrow star expressed an affinity for Arrowverse memes, often sharing photos poking fun at the CW's DC superhero multiverse. During a portion of Arrow's 170-episode run, Amell even led the charge; on "Meme Mondays," the actor would post pictures of himself and his castmates, encouraging his followers to add the funniest captions they could muster.
The death of Oliver Queen, however, proved to be something of a sensitive topic for the actor. During the CW series' annual Arrowverse crossover "Crisis on Infinite Earths," which took place during some of Arrow's final episodes, the Green Arrow sacrificed himself to save his fellow heroes and the multiverse at large amidst a showdown with the villainous Anti-Monitor. After appearing one last time in the series finale, Amell bid Arrow a bittersweet farewell, indicating he was satisfied stepping away from the CW's superhero conglomerate after playing his role for the better part of eight years.
However, when the CW later attempted to rebrand the Arrowverse to "the CWverse," Amell spoke out against the change while appearing as a guest on Michael Rosenbaum's "Inside of You" podcast. He stated, while laughing, "That fucking pissed me off." In another episode of the podcast, Amell said he had some issues with the way his death scene was prepared and slotted during the show's filming schedule.
"I blame no one for this, but this is a scene with me from Arrow, that's taking place on Supergirl with a Supergirl crew with demands on both Grant and Caity Lotz who are on Flash and Legends who are on a different schedule than the crossover because they're shooting different shit and they're trying to pull them so they don't, Flash and Legends, mess up their day the next day," Amell said. "Meanwhile, the fucking Green Arrow is laying on a gurney trying to deliver his lines to something other than a fucking tennis ball."
In the same episode, Amell discussed how his closing work on Arrow left him exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally. He even suffered a panic attack during the podcast's recording, but later returned after recovering for a powerful discussion on mental health. Following the conclusion of Arrow, Amell has returned to acting, currently starring in Starz's professional wrestling drama Heels. He and his cousin Robbie Amell are also gearing up to work on Code 8: Part II, a Netflix follow-up series to the duo's 2019 sci-fi/crime thriller, Code 8.