Katie Cassidy didn’t see her exit from Arrow coming — and she still has her theories on what caused the decision.
“Happy to be here, easy to work with. It’s my slogan,” Cassidy, 38, shared on the Tuesday, March 18, episode of the “Inside of You” podcast before host Michael Rosenbaum asked if that was always her slogan on the Arrow set, to which she replied, “I will say this, I had to eat some humble pie when they killed me off that show. It was really hard.”
Cassidy recalled the onscreen mystery about who was buried in a grave they introduced during the season 4 premiere. She had a feeling her character, Laurel Lance, was getting killed off — and that turned out to be true.
“I was in shock because the next day I was in New York going to Comic-Con with my whole cast. I was angry at first. And I was emotional because I was sad and I was angry because I was so happy [working on the show],” she recalled. “It was a couple of things [that led to the decision]. I have theories. I think it was political. It’s a lot.”
A Guide to All of The CW’s Superheroes: From ‘Arrow’ to ‘Gotham Knights’
Cassidy allowed herself an “anger moment” despite always being “a professional” on set.
“I was like, ‘I just have to say [this to the executive producers]. I feel like I’ve always been given the short end of the stick and I have to go,’” she continued. “I didn’t yell. I just cried because I was sad. I worked really hard on that show and that character. I loved it.”
Arrow, which aired on The CW from 2012 to 2020, was based on the DC Comics character Green Arrow. After four seasons on the show, Cassidy was killed off as Laurel Lance but was subsequently brought back as Earth-2 doppelgänger Black Siren in a crossover with spinoff The Flash. From there, Cassidy was asked to come back to Arrow following backlash to her character’s departure.
“Unfortunately, after they killed me, I guess their ratings went down a little. But I did get a call after The Flash aired that said, ‘Will you come back as a series regular? I think we may have made a mistake,’” she recalled. “That was season 6, and on season 5 I was recurring. Then I was back and better than ever.”
Cassidy previously reflected on how her character’s death wasn’t her choice.
Shocking TV Exits Through the Years
“I think that them killing me off the show was actually, for me personally, a very good thing, because like I said, you sometimes need to get knocked down,” she told TVLine in 2020. “I didn’t want to get killed off — to be honest. I was sad but I also understood. I wasn’t mad or bitter. I was like, ‘I get it, this is TV.’ And it was a platform for the writers to write for other characters and how they react to a lead getting killed off.”
Cassidy continued: “I have to say that as a person going through that, I was grateful and lucky enough — the universe does work for us if we allow it to — that they brought me back shortly after. For that I was so grateful. … You kind of go through all the emotions, so you really just have to ground yourself and have appreciation and gratitude for everything. I really am glad that I got to learn that lesson.”
She remained with the series through the eighth and final season and was one of the leads of the potential spinoff Green Arrow and the Canaries, which ultimately didn’t move forward.
