Arrow returned to the CW last week as Season 2 kicked off and viewers learned exactly how Oliver Queen was reacting to the tragic fallout of his battle with Malcolm Merlyn (as expected, not very well). But the premiere saw Ollie get back into the game, with a little help from the ever-faithful Diggle and Felicity, and now he's ready to confront the new challenges that lie ahead. Those challenges include becoming CEO of Queen Consolidated, sharing that responsibility with his new business rival, Isabel Rochev, and finding a way to continue his vigilante career while also respecting the memory of his late friend, Tommy. There's also the appearance of new costumed heroes in Season 2, including Black Canary and The Flash.

It's a busy life for Ollie, and that goes for the actor who portrays him as well. Luckily, with yesterday being Canadian Thanksgiving, Stephen Amell had a bit of free time in the midst of filming the mid-season finale. We were able to talk with the actor about how Ollie's journey will progress over the coming months as life in Starling City grows more complicated.

Physically, it was actually quite a challenge. There's no way to prepare yourself for a 23-episode shoot, which is just shy of 200 days of production, plus all the different outside demands that came with it. By the time I was at the end of the first season, I was totally burnt. And I got sick for about six weeks. So once I let myself get better, I tried to get a bit of a mental recharge. Like a month before we started shooting this season, I was probably 25 pounds overweight, because I needed to relax. My body was really tired. So it's important that I did that, and that I thought about new ways to approach this year, just mentally and physically. Because we're in this for the long haul. We don't want to do two seasons; we want six. I don't ever want to be sick again after we finish production when I'm supposed to be taking time to relax. So physically, it was challenging, but I'm glad I went through the experience of the first season, because it's just given me all the knowledge on how to pace myself. Right now, we're nine episodes in. We're pretty close to halfway down the season, it feels like, and I feel fantastic.: Yeah, we're at a great pace. We're halfway through episode 9. It's a holiday up here in Canada today, so we have the day off. But halfway through episode 9. And the end of the ninth episode is the unofficial halfway point of the season for us. We came on the air last week, and we'll be on the air for nine consecutive weeks. The ninth episode is the last one before our Christmas break. Last year it was when we revealed the identity of the Dark Archer and set in motion the end-game for our season, and that's very much what happens this year too. It's also the second half of our introduction of Grant Gustin as Barry Allen. These are prime episodes that we're shooting right now. [laughs]Mmhmm.Yes, but not always in the negative sense. He's taking it very hard, but the declaration he makes in the premiere, and one that we hope honor, not just in this season, but through any subsequent seasons of the show, is that he's going to try and be a better person to honor Tommy, and because of what happened to him. The shadow of Colin's character will always be with the show, but I'm really hoping it's not just in a mournful, negative, sad way, but in a positive, character-building way.It's certainly more dynamic. It gives us a lot more options with storytelling. And you know, we never really referred to Ollie as "The Arrow" or "Green Arrow" in Season 1, and there's a really, really good reason for that. He's not that character. He's very myopic in the first season. He had tunnel vision. He was a guy focused on revenge, and he had serious, serious anger issues that were ultimately his downfall in the first season. And the downfall of a lot of people. So I'm excited that we're taking the main character on our show and admitting that he has some pretty serious flaws that he needs to work on. If we can get people to a spot where they can begin to empathize with the character a little more - because there wasn't a great deal to rally around for viewers with Oliver. He was a pretty hard-edged guy in Season 1. If we can present a version that people can connect with a little more, I think that's a game-changer for our show,. So I'm very excited that we're doing that.

Arrow: Season Premiere 2 Review

Oh yeah, big time. Big time. Killing people creates a moral conundrum, certainly, but it's actually pretty neat and tidy from a logistical standpoint. If you're going to be presented with a villain who is trying to use lethal force on Ollie or the people he cares about, and he's not going to kill that villain, then what are we going to do with them? We're going to create a world where we might have a lot of incarcerated villains, but they're still alive. And we've seen through the course of the show that, if you're not going to put somebody in a body bag, they're going to come back and haunt you. It's going to create a bunch of scenarios where Oliver is more on a moral high-ground, but he's going to have to deal with those repercussions inasmuch as there are more people after him.Absolutely. Very much so.

Continue to Page 2 as Amell discusses Oliver’s superhero name, his Arrow castmates and the introduction of superpowers via The Flash.