Paging Dr. Ivo: Interview With Arrow’s Dylan Neal

To a generation, he was “Deputy Doug” on Dawson’s Creek. For your mom, he is hunky newspaper editor Jack Griffith on the Hallmark Channel’s Debbie Macomber’s Cedar Cove. For a fan of Arrow, though, Dylan Neal is the nasty Dr. Anthony Ivo, who makes a return appearance in tomorrow night’s episode, “The Promise.”

We spoke with Mr. Neal at a recent Hallmark Channel event about juggling the nice guy role on Cedar Cove with his role as the baddie in Arrow’s island flashbacks.

“You know, I’ve done that my entire career. I probably do 50 percent bad guys, 50 percent good guys, and all that changes is the age over the years,” he laughs. “But it’s fun to be able to do that. I consider myself lucky, to be able to get the opportunity to mix it up. I think it would be kind of boring to just play only one the whole time, and to play him at the same time is just sort of really fun. Most of the year, I’m doing Jack Griffith on Cedar Cove, and this just came along during hiatus, and I don’t know how long it’s going to go. I don’t know if I’m going to keep doing this, but I’ve really enjoyed playing Dr. Ivo,” he says.

“The shows obviously, themselves, are so, so different from each other. Arrow’s so flashy, and they’ve got quite a large budget, and big, flashy sets… it’s so different working on Cedar Cove, where we don’t even have a studio. We do most of our shots outside or in practical locations in real houses,” he says, marveling about how big sets such as the freighter happen to be.

Arrow has reunited Neal with occasional director and Director of Photography of Arrow, Glen Winter, who is the director of “The Promise.” The two worked together before when Neal had a recurring role on Smallville during Season 9. “I really like working with Glen,” Neal says. “He’s a really talented DP and director, and I think we get along well. I’m a technical actor, so directors usually really like working with me, because I make their job easy, and he definitely appreciates that what I bring to my work. Just sort of that technical knowledge – just makes the day go a little bit faster.”

What can he tease about this Wednesday’s episode?  “I will say that [‘The Promise’] is sort of the culmination of where we’ve been leading to for several months. This is the episode that’s going to decide ‘does Ivo die?’ or ‘does Ivo live?’ I won’t tell you what happens. Ivo suffers a little, I will say, if that ultimately leads to his death or his carrying on. But there is a comeuppance for Dr. Ivo coming, and the episode…. it’s a big on,” he says.

Don’t miss a new episode of Arrow Wednesday night, March 5 on The CW… and for more of Dylan Neal (as well as Teryl Rothery, who played Jean Loring in several episodes)… Cedar Cove Season 2 is scheduled to premiere in July 2014!