Arrow‘s Colton Haynes Reveals the Real Reason He Left Ahead of Final Season
‘Member when it was quite unexpectedly announced that Colton Haynes, who had rejoined Arrow for Season 7, would not stick around as a series regular for the final season?
Well, now we may a bit more insight into that abrupt exit.
Ahead of the CW series’ 10-episode farewell run, then-showrunner Beth Schwartz said that Haynes would not be continuing as a series regular, the status he enjoyed in Season 7 when he reprised his role as Roy Harper aka Arsenal. But “we hope to have him back,” Schwartz told Green Arrow TV in August 2019.
Haynes’ status change came as a bit of a surprise, seeing as Season 7 and its flash-forward storyline left some holes to fill — namely, as to why Roy had exiled himself to Lian Yu, decades after a falling out with Thea. (Then again, Haynes’ “series regular” status in Season 7 was ultimately a bit misleading, seeing as he appeared in fewer than half of the 22 episodes.)
At the time that the above news broke, Haynes aimed to clarify on Twitter, “I didn’t exit the last season of Arrow. I was not asked to come back for the final season as a series regular.”
But now, in his new memoir Miss Memory Lane (via an E Online excerpt), he has shed a bit more light on the circumstances leading to his full-time exit.
“I had walked away from my full-time job on Arrow at the beginning of the year, supposedly because my contract had ended,” Haynes shares, “but it was really because I was too depressed and I couldn’t stand working with one of my cast mates.”
Haynes ultimately made a couple of appearances during Arrow‘s eighth and final season, including at the series-ending funeral for Oliver Queen. (Oops, spoiler alert.)
Haynes will next be seen reprising the role of occasional troublemaker Jackson Whittemore in Teen Wolf: The Movie, a direct continuation of the MTV series, which debuts on Paramount+ later this year.
So we are to assume that the cast member he couldn’t stand was someone in the future timeline. I’m couldn’t be Emily Bett Rickards because they were always super close. I wonder if it was Katherine McNamara or Ben Lewis.
I see why he didn’t reveal who it actually was but the homo in me wants to see the drama unfold!! Where’s the popcorn?
Also, Emily left the series at the end of S7.
I don’t think it really matters in all honesty. There’s no show on television without any sort of drama and people who work together for long periods of time for the best part of a year are likely to clash at some point. They’re only human.
This article tells us nothing as it essentially blatant PR for his book, which is isn’t that odd but I’ve never seen TVLine do it before (at least in a way that is so obvious).
I think we can rule out Emily Bett Rickards as the disfavored cast mate, as IG evidence points to the two of them being close. I’d also eliminate Kat MacNamara and Juliana Harkavy as a candidate, for similar reasons. But what do I know…
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It’s a shame, regardless, that anyone else on the cast was able to so negatively impact his feelings, and his health, enough that he’d prefer to walk away. I’m glad he seems to be in a much more healthy mental space now.
He had left earlier in the series due to depression or a different mental health issue. So it’s completely plausible that it came back after working on the show again. This cast member might have just intensified his health issues. They may have not even known they were doing it.
So he lied and blamed others when really he just didn’t want to do it. I enjoyed Roy and have liked Colton’s acting in the past but this seems to be a recurring pattern with him. Ultimately I hope he can find a happy medium but he’s a little exhausting.
I don’t see it quite as a lie, more as a veiled truth. They probably didn’t invite him back because he was a liability. He was clearly not happy, by his own admission, so they removed him from the equation. So not quite fired for poor peformance, but no contract extension either. He does seem to have some struggles.
which in turn suggests that whoever the problem was was more important to the final season storyline and couldn’t be cut instead. hmmm.
He’s not the only one to do it. Many actors have gone back later and told a different story. At the time he was younger and was dealing with his mental health. He said, at the time, what he thought would be best for him. I don’t blame him for it.
Unless your a Vancouver vet, nobody wants to return to any of those low budget cw shows, every cast member talks like it’s been fun and I’ll come back if they can work me in, then hardly any of them return.
The guy playing lex describes it as a place time stands still, plus your so far away from Hollywood you can never get any side projects going
If most people didn’t enjoy working on these shows none would extend their contracts beyond their expiry and most would be looking for an out.
Are we sure this refers to his second departure and not his first?
Its not Stephen Amell or Emily because he was at their houses partying during the final run and after arrow ended.
This is a tough one because he has been open about his mental health struggles and struggles with addiction. The cast member may not have been doing anything bad/wrong but because of his striggles there was a clash. It’s interesting though because from his social media around the time and after he has stayed on friendly terms with quite a few of the main cast.
Could it be Katie Cassidy? That’s one of the few people it could possibly be
I was thinking Katie or David Ramsey. Who knows?
If he’s talking about season 7, I don’t think he and Katie worked together much (or at all?) that season.
I think it’s safe to rule out Stephen, Emily and David. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say Katie Cassidy or the guy that played Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez?).
It can’t be Katie because she didn’t film with him in the flashback scenes plus they communicate on social media.
It’s not Stephen Amell, Emily Bett Rickards, David Ramsey, Katie Cassidy or Willa Holland as they were all day one stars of the series and he wouldn’t have went back in the first place knowing they were still there. It’s either someone from “New Team Arrow” (Dina, Rene, Curtis) or the future scenes.
I would be surprised if anyone now was wondering why Colton was not a regular in Season 8 of Arrow. However now the mystery is who he couldn’t stand to work with. A better Arrow mystery to solve would have been, as mentioned in the article, why Roy had exiled himself to Lian Yu in the future. If the producers had now decided to mention what they had in mind if Colton were available, that would have been interesting to me and perhaps other fans of Arrow.
Folks fixating on which cast member he had drama with are missing that he was also causing a lot of stress on set. Understanding and empathy for his situation and struggles don’t excuse his own behavior, and I think his comments here are an admission that he wasn’t asked back full-time because of his negative contributions.
I bet if we check who he follows on social media (Instagram/Twitter) we can get to the bottom of this mystery cast member.
Seriously? “Oops, spoilers”?! Thanks for that, jackhole.