Starring in a series for open television is no longer a priority for well-positioned actors in the industry in the United States. The audiences, prestige and impact are no longer what they were. This does not affect a project on everyone’s lips: Suits: LA, the spin-off of Aaron Korsh’s lawyer series, which received the green light after the original Suits was the undisputed television phenomenon of last year. And who took the role? Canadian Stephen Amell (Toronto, 1981).
Amell will play Ted Black, a former New York prosecutor who has redefined his career as a lawyer for the most powerful people in Los Angeles from his own firm specializing in criminal and entertainment law. When the company goes into crisis, he must take control in a way that he had always avoided, between lawyers who test each other. This forces him to face the past that led him to move to the other side of the country and leave his loved ones behind.
Korsh and the NBC channel, which will broadcast the series during the 2024-2025 season, have opted for an actor who understands what it means to work in American primetime and with an accelerated production system. Amell became known in 2012 with the role of Oliver Queen, the superhero with bow and arrows in Arrow, the series produced by Warner Bros for the youth profile channel The CW, which wanted to emancipate itself from content designed specifically for teenagers.
“Amell (out of uniform) certainly has the kind of abs that arouse some envy,” Variety noted after the premiere. When Arrow said goodbye in 2020, the actor had filmed a total of 170 episodes without counting his participation in the spin-offs derived from his series such as The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of tomorrow and Batwoman, which turned the DC Comics television universe into one of the most prolific on television.
After eight seasons, Amell was in a very different point professionally, especially compared to his beginnings. He settled in Los Angeles at the age of 19 with the intention of dedicating himself to the world of acting and where at first he settled for roles marked by his physical appearance. You just have to see that, for example, he debuted in Queer as Folk as a spinning instructor and even participated in the low-cost homosexual erotic series Dante’s Cove.
He did not position himself in the industry until 2011 when roles in medium-high profile series began to pour in. She participated in two episodes of the youth phenomenon The Vampire Diaries, the HBO channel hired her to play a gigolo in the comedy Hung and the all-powerful screenwriter Shonda Rhimes entrusted her with a recurring role in Without Appointment, the spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy. And, upon being signed by Arrow, he also gained sentimental stability: he remarried the model and actress Cassandra Jean, with whom he has two children.
In recent years, Amell managed to maintain his passion for wrestling, where he made his first steps while he was in Arrow, with his role as an actor by obtaining the leading role in Heels, a television series about this sport that combines combat and performing arts. There he played Jack Spade, a man raised in wrestling as a family business and pitted against his younger brother, played by Vikings’ Alexander Ludwig.
The hiring for Suits: LA also puts on the table that his career as an actor has not been affected by his position during the Hollywood actors’ strike called by the SAG-Aftra union and which lasted between July and November. And, while he said he supported the union to which he belongs, he criticized that the strike was a “reductionist” and “short-sighted” negotiation tactic, angry at not being able to promote the second season of Heels, which ended up being canceled.
After these statements, the actor was photographed on the picket in New York in front of the offices of Warner Bros. Discovery, in what was interpreted as a maneuver to wash his image among colleagues.
