While confirming that the Russian mob will play a large part in the upcoming season of the CW series, the Oliver Queen depicter claims he doesn't know further about the season's villain.
- June 7, 2016
AceShowbiz -
"Arrow" season 4 finale featured flashback sequences that teased the direction of season 5. Following speculations about the possibility of addressing Oliver Queen's relation to Bratva, now lead star Stephen Amell has confirmed that the Russian mob will indeed play a large part in the upcoming installment of the series.
Anatoly Knyazev, who is the leader of Solntsevskaya Bratva in the comic books, has appeared in the second season of the TV series in flashback sequences. Asked during a panel at Wizard World Philadelphia if the character would be the main villain in season 5, Amell was coy.
"Typically by now, I would have gone to the writers' room and we would have had long, lengthy discussions about the upcoming season, but I wrapped 'Arrow', I had a really nice end-of-season dinner with Greg Berlanti, which is what we always do. We chatted about the good, the bad, the ugly, what's coming, what's happened, et cetera, et cetera. But we had that, and I literally haven't been home since the beginning of May," he said.
The actor revealed that he would meet with the writing team on Wednesday and would learn more about the season's villain then.
Amell previously told Variety about the new villain, "As far as I know, they don't have superpowers. I'll tell you that." Meanwhile, a recent report said the show's looking for an actor to portray a villain tentatively called Anton Church who is described as a ruthless crime lord who sets out to fill the sizable void left by Damien Darhk and H.I.V.E.
While the character is loosely based on Idris Elba's drug kingpin character Stringer Bell on HBO's "The Wire", the villain is physically described as Jason Momoa's "Game of Thrones" character Khal Drogo.
