Stephen Amell

Despite the fact that after six years in the role, for many fans Stephen Amell has become THE FACE of Oliver Queen/ The Green Arrow, there are still many who point to the comics and say that he is not a true incarnation of the character without the iconic facial hair sported by the illustrated version of Oliver Queen. It is something that has plagued Stephen Amell and the show almost from the beginning, but Amell has repeatedly said that he is unable to grow facial hair to match his comic-counterpart. The closest they have ever come was during an episode of ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’ where they visit Star City of the future and meet the Oliver Queen of that time. He had the iconic facial hair, though it was grey and on an older Oliver. Even then it was clear the beard was fake, put on with glue, and still did not look quite right.

Cut to now, when in-universe Season 7 is about to open with Oliver Queen having spent 5 months in Supermax, and the time is ripe for our hero to finally grow some true Oliver Queen-esque facial hair, at least according to Stephen Amell’s Twitter account:

Whether or not he ends up looking like Thanos will be the concern of the make-up department on ‘Arrow,’ though personally, with facial hair or not, I do not really think that it matters all that much. I think Stephen Amell’s regular facial hair comes close enough to the comics without looking campy or forced, and not everything needs to be EXACTLY like the comics. The show has already wandered pretty far when it comes to Oliver’s personal fortunes and love life, Laurel Lance, Arsenal, Merlyn, etc, there’s no need to suddenly feel like they need to be completely faithful as we go into the seventh season.

But that maybe that’s just me.

Feel free to weigh in on Amell’s facial hair in the comments below!