moviefone – Moviefone speaks to actress Katherine McNamara about what happened to ‘Green Arrow and The Canaries’. “All of us were looking forward to continuing,” she said.

After eight successful seasons and launching the ‘Arrowverse’ series of TV shows, the flagship DC Comics series ‘Arrow’ ended in 2020 after the very successful crossover event ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’.
Through a complicated time traveling plotline, Oliver Queen’s (Stephen Amell) adult daughter Mia Smoak played by actress Katherine McNamara was introduced in ‘Arrow’s final season and participated in ‘Crisis’. With the show ending, the idea was to spinoff McNamara’s character with her own series entitled ‘Green Arrow and The Canaries’, which would have seen Mia take on her father’s superhero mantle, alongside Katie Cassidy and Juliana Harkavy, reprising their roles from ‘Arrow’.

In fact, the penultimate episode of the final season of ‘Arrow’ was a backdoor pilot to ‘Green Arrow and The Canaries’, entitled ‘Livin’ in the Future’, which took place twenty years after the finale of ‘Arrow’. The episode features a future timeline where Mia never becomes the Green Arrow, but after a time displaced Dinah Drake (Harkavy) restores Mia’s memories of the other timeline, she takes on her father’s superhero identity to stop a new Deathstroke, who may or may not be her fiancé, John Diggle Jr. (Charlie Barnett). The episode ends on a cliffhanger, where Mia’s brother, William Clayton (Ben Lewis), is mysteriously abducted.

However, the series was ultimately not picked up because of COVID, or possibly James Gunntaking over DC Studios and effectively ending the ‘Arrowverse’ and any DC TV show not connected to his future-plans. While McNamara did reprise her role as Mia briefly in the final season of ‘The Flash’, she was still looking for her brother, and ultimately no satisfying conclusion to that storyline was given.

Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with actress Katherine McNamara about her work on ‘High Ground,’ which was directed by ‘Arrow’ alum James Bamford and will be available to buy on digital beginning March 18th.

In addition to ‘High Ground’, we also spoke to McNamara about joining the final season of ‘Arrow’, her involvement in the groundbreaking ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’ crossover, why ‘Green Arrow and The Canaries’ did not go to series, what that show’s storyline would have been, reprising her role in the final season of ‘The Flash’, and if she would want to return to the role in James Gunn’s new DC Universe.

Joining the ‘Arrowverse’
To begin with, McNamara discussed what it was like to join ‘Arrow’ for the final season and be a part of the ‘Arrowverse’ of TV shows.

“I’d obviously seen how beloved Oliver and Felicity as individual characters were, but also as a couple. When I auditioned, I had no idea that that is the character I was auditioning for. I didn’t know until after I was cast. Suddenly, I got this news that I was the human product of Oliver and Felicity, and I’m going, “Oh, I have big shoes to fill. All right, let’s see.” It was amazing, because obviously Stephen Amell and Emily Bett Rickards did such incredible work on that show and had seven seasons at that point of rich character work.”

McNamara also talked about her research and approach to playing the role.

“I watched the whole series, and I was able to kind of cherry pick different qualities, good and bad of each of their characters, and mush them together to create Mia. Taking Felicity’s sense of humor and Oliver’s walk and his propensity to have a short temper, but also her mother’s strategy, and being able to blend those things together to create this new character that the writers gave such a beautiful, twisted, deep story to. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. “