Katie Cassidy Discusses Her Arrow Experience At Salt Lake Comic Con

Stephen Amell and David Ramsey weren’t the only Arrow cast members to hit the recent Salt Lake City Comic Con – Katie Cassidy (Laurel) was also featured in a panel at the convention, and the first question she was asked was about her departure from the show last season, and whether or not she saw it coming.

“No, I didn’t know it was coming, and it really sucked, and it still sucks,” she said before discussing how she found out about Laurel’s death. Despite this, the actress has a good attitude. “It’s television, and this world, especially, anything can happen, and I think that’s also a positive thing, if you think about it, because maybe they could bring me back, I don’t know,” she said. “It was definitely tough, but I appreciate the four and a half years that they wrote for me. I had such a great arc as a character and as an actor, I had such an amazing character to play and journey to go on.”

Fortunately for fans of Laurel Lance, Katie Cassidy’s time on the show is not yet over. “Coming up, you will see me in the premiere of Arrow Season 5, which will be very exciting, and they announced at Comic-Con that [I will appear] across all three shows — Flash, Legends, and Arrow — for this next year — as Black Canary/Laurel/Black Siren, which was really awesome to play. Spoiler alert for those of you who haven’t seen Flash!”

In the 45-minute Q&A, Katie talks about getting the iconic Black Canary role and how long it might take from the start to put on a suit. “I kept telling my manager, ‘let’s just wait and see what happens,’ and it’s the coolest thing ever when you become a superhero. It’s like every kid’s dream, and especially for women these days. I think it’s cool, having strong female characters doing that and playing that role. It’s been a blast, and I’m so grateful for everything,” she said.

“I do have to say, coming from a creative perspective, as a producer if you kill off a main character like that, the reaction from all the other character, it’s creating a platform for each different character to jump off of; it gives to more story, and I do understand that. They were very good to me for many years and wrote for me for many years, so you have to come to term with things. That’s how this business goes sometimes, and you kind of have to just grin and bear it. Take some punches, you throw some back later on. Don’t worry,” she teased. Katie also praised the arc that Laurel had taken on, even when in the beginning the character wasn’t very popular. “With Season 1, we didn’t necessarily love Laurel that much, I think the fans were a little, like, ehhh.. not necessarily what they wanted to see, but see the character deal with addiction and alcoholism and hit rock bottom and then see them come out on the flip side and come out on top of it… it was such an honor to be able to play that character and be able to do that. It was a dream. There aren’t even words to explain how fulfilling that is,” she reflected.

You can watch the panel below, where Katie praises her fellow actors and the writers of Arrow, and she also answers more than a few Supernatural questions. Enjoy: