‘Arrow’ Star Katie Cassidy Gets Candid About Learning Her Character Was Getting Killed Off

Over eight years after her initial death on Arrow, Katie Cassidy is getting candid about how she learned it was going to happen.

The actress starred in the first four seasons as Laurel Lance/Black Canary until she’s wounded by Damian Darhk and later dies. And she was surprised when she first heard about it.

Via Deadline, Cassidy appeared on the Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast, telling the Smallville alum she “had to eat some humble pie when they killed me off that show” back in 2016. “It was really hard,” she said. While Arrow teased at the beginning of the season a character was going to die, she didn’t actually think it would happen until she was at a comic con in New York with the rest of the cast, where she got an email from the show’s creators asking to set up a meeting the following week.

She then texted co-creator Marc Guggenheim, who told her he would call the following day since she had a “sick feeling” in her stomach. After the call, Cassidy said she was ‘angry at first, and I was emotional because I was sad, and I was angry because I was so happy.” As for why she was killed off, Cassidy said she thinks “it was a couple of things.”

“I have theories,” she said. “I think it was political. It’s a lot. Regardless, I said, you know, I’m a professional. This was my only anger moment. I was like, ‘I just have to say, I feel like I’ve always been given the short end of the stick, and I have to go.’ And I didn’t yell, or I just cried because I was sad. And I, you know, Steven called me immediately and was like, ‘I’m so sorry, it’s you. Like, I don’t want it to be you. I worked really hard on that show and that character. And I just, I loved it.’

Luckily, producer Andrew Kreisberg called her two weeks later to play Laurel’s Earth-2 doppelganger, Black Siren, on The Flash, and Cassidy jumped at the chance. After appearing on The Flash and ratings improved, Cassidy mentioned that ratings dipped for Arrow, and she got a call from Guggenheim asking, “‘Will you come back as a series regular? I think we made a mistake.’”

After recurring in Season 5, Cassidy was brought back as a series regular during Season 6 until the end of the series. And even very nearly starred on a spinoff, Green Arrow and the Canaries. Even though it might not have been what she initially thought, at least it all worked out in the end.