Colton Haynes came to Arrow back in 2013 as a familiar face to Teen Wolf fans, and became a key part of the superhero show that would go on to launch an entire universe of TV shows that is still going to this day. That said, his role as Roy Harper involved going back and forth in series regular status over the years, and now the actor has revealed why Season 7 was his last as a regular, with only sporadic appearances in the eighth and final season.
In an excerpt from his new memoir (via E! News), called Miss Memory Lane, Haynes revealed the truth behind his reduced role as Roy in Season 8 of Arrow after returning to series regular status in Season 7. Now, more than two years since the series finale (for which Haynes did return), his memoir sheds light on what happened behind the scenes. He wrote:
I had walked away from my full-time job on Arrow at the beginning of the year, supposedly because my contract had ended, but it was really because I was too depressed and I couldn't stand working with one of my cast mates.
Colton Haynes doesn’t identify which of the cast mates he “couldn’t stand working with” over the course of what was presumably Season 7, which was the last season in which he was billed as a regular. When the news initially broke back in 2019 that Haynes would not be back in a full-time capacity for the eighth season, the actor took to Twitter to state that he “was not asked to come back for the final season as a series regular.”
He also said in that message in 2019 that Roy is “never gone too long,” so there wasn’t a sense of bad blood between Haynes and the show. He didn’t actually appear in every episode of Season 7, but is credited for appearing in ten out of the season’s 22 episodes.
His role in Season 7 was split between the present and flash-forwards to the dystopian future that featured the kids of the present-day heroes, including William, Mia, Zoe, and Connor Hawke, as well as older versions of heroes including Felicity, Black Siren, Black Canary, and Wild Dog in addition to Roy.
Haynes later appeared in three out of the ten episodes of Season 8, including the series finale that featured many of the most notable characters from the entire history of the show following the events of the “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover that changed everything and set Oliver up for an arguably happy ending despite his “Crisis” fate. Haynes was one of several cast members who shared touching messages on the last day of filming.
The actor may never open up with all the details about the cast mate who he “couldn’t stand” to work with, but at least it seems like he’s in a good place if he was able to open up in his memoir. He’d previously shared why he departed as a regular the first time around at the end of Season 3, saying that he asked to step away for the sake of his mental and physical health.
Colton Haynes has not returned to the Arrowverse for any of the other shows since the end of the parent series in early 2020, but fans with a Netflix subscription can revisit his days as Roy Harper/Arsenal with all eight seasons of Arrow available streaming. For some more current viewing options, be sure to check out our 2022 TV premiere schedule.
