ARROW Exclusive: David Ramsey On Ollicity and Diggle in the Arrow Suit 

The CW brought the casts of both Arrow and The Flash to the Television Critics Association called “The Heroes and Villains of Arrow and The Flash. On the panel, the producers revealed plans for an A.T.O.M. spinoff potentially starring Brandon Routh, and asserted that characters like Diggle and Felicity Smoak would not become costumed heroes.

We had a one on one with David Ramsey, who plays Diggle, and it sounds like he might temporarily breach the “no costume” rule, at least while Oliver Queen is missing and presumed dead. Ramsey had a lot more to say about Oliver and Felicity, stepping up in Oliver’s absence, and sharing the screen with the extended DC universe. Arrow returns Wednesday at 8 on The CW.

Nuke the Fridge: Diggle seems to be the biggest advocate for Oliver and Felicity getting together, isn’t he?

David Ramsey: Yeah, Diggle’s a big Ollicity fan, right?

Nuke: What does he see, and the rest of us see, that Oliver doesn’t see?

David Ramsey: Normalcy for Oliver. I think Diggle’s always been the guy, when Diggle joined the team he told Oliver that Oliver doesn’t know what it means to consistently, repeatedly kill someone, what that does to the human spirit. That, along with Tommy’s death, and Felicity’s urging, kind of moved him away from killing people into this hero he’s now become. Also part of what Diggle has been pushing for is being true to who he is. He’s a man in need of companionship, in need of love, to be honest with himself. I think he honestly loves Felicity. I think Felicity honestly loves him. And I think that Diggle sees that relationship as, again, just another piece of him embracing his humanity. I think that’s why he’s a fan of it.

Nuke: Oliver’s worried about protecting Felicity, but she’s already on the team. She’s already in danger so they might as well be together.

David Ramsey: Like Diggle told Oliver, it’s not Oliver’s choice as to who stays, why they’re here. This is now our crusade as much as it is his. Felicity’s here because she wants to be, so she’s quite aware that she’s placing herself in mortal danger. So am I. So is Roy. We’re here because we believe in what we’re doing. And that decision gets cemented in Oliver’s absence. So there’s no reason why he can’t be with Felicity because Felicity’s here because she wants to be. The same way Diggle has a wife and a child and he fights crime at night, in his mind there’s no reason why Oliver can’t do the same.

Nuke: Stephen Amell is here today and we know the show is still called Arrow, so when Oliver comes back, how instrumental will Diggle be in helping him recover from his battle with Ra’s al Ghul?

David Ramsey: Diggle will be instrumental in all those aspects. He’ll be instrumental also in his absence and stepping up to the place and the leadership that he brings as a soldier and probably the oldest member of the group. In terms of what happens if and when he comes back, the big question of the season is Ra’s al Ghul. What the hell do we do with him? That will remain for a long time.

Nuke: Does Diggle have to step up in the action?

David Ramsey: He does. The Arrow suit is in Diggle’s future.

David Ramsey: Oh, I love Stephen. That’s my man, but I can’t fit his suit. I will bust straight through that stuff. They designed and made a whole new suit for Diggle. They made a bolero suit.

David Ramsey: The suit? It’s great. It’s awesome. Colton [Haynes] knows this and Katie Cassidy. When you put on those uniforms, you put on that leather, put on the mask, it’s like you kind of feel badass. So it’s awesome, but I like the idea that Diggle doesn’t wear that. I think that’s his greatness, the fact that Diggle’s like you and me. He’s awesome and he’s normal. He’s a guy who just joined the force. He just joined the military, man, wanted to help out. He did two or three tours, became a Special Forces guy. He’s like anybody else who just decided to be great. Everyone else, they’re great but Diggle’s greatness and his awesomeness is in his normalcy. I think if you take that away from him it becomes something else. I think some of the appeal that he has, you lose that.

David Ramsey: Yeah. I haven’t tried on camera, so I guess it doesn’t really count, does it?

Nuke: I just want to know if you’ve done it.

David Ramsey: Yeah, the salmon ladder, you do have to have a certain amount of strength if you’re going to do, let’s say, five pull-ups, full pull-ups up and down. But if you can do that, you can do the salmon ladder. It’s about technique. Swing, pull-up, swing, pull-up, swing. It’s not easy, but it’s not as hard as you might think.

Nuke: Will Diggle have anything to do with. A.T.O.M.?

David Ramsey: Yeah, I think some of that’s going to be coming up. The full fledged A.T.O.M. will be part of Starling City, so yeah, they will have some run-ins for sure.

Nuke: When you signed on to Arrow it was just Green Arrow. What do you think of the expanding universe by season three?

David Ramsey: I think in anyone else’s hands we would have been in trouble, but in Greg Berlanti’s hands, fantastic. The DC universe and Geoff Johns, by the way, DC, Andrew Kreisberg, Marc Guggenheim, they’re fans, first of all, of the canon. They have a lot of respect for it. And I’m a fan. I’m a geek. So I’m privileged to work on it but at the same time, these guys are writing fantastic stuff. They’re writing really, really good stuff. Even just as a television spectator, there’s very good writing on these shows, Flash and Arrow particularly. So I’m lucky. What do I think about it? I think as long as these people are helming it, I think it’s going to be great.

Nuke: And Diggle has remained a central character. Were you ever worried that the bigger the cast got the less you’d have to do?

David Ramsey: Of course. As an actor, you’re always worried about some of that stuff. The writing goes where it goes. I’m still worried about it. At the end of the day, I’m an actor wanting for work like anybody else. Any actor, even the big ones, they’re looking for the next big thing, or the next thing even if it’s not big. So that’s just part of our makeup. We’re always trying to express ourselves as artists. So yeah, as the cast grows, you’re thinking, what happens to Diggle? Does Diggle’s writing get watered down? What happens to me? But to their credit, to the creators and writers’ credit, there’s always an open door where I can go in and say, “Where are you going with this? What do you think about this? What do you think about that?” And we can always bounce ideas off, and we have. I worry about it less on this show than maybe other shows where there is a closed-door policy and what they do is the law. I’m not quite as worried about it as I know some other actors would be.

Nuke: What was one of your ideas that made it onto the show?

David Ramsey: Well, I think the idea that you’ve got to see Andy. You’re going to see some Andy Diggle. Not that they weren’t ever thinking about that, but I think for Diggle’s development, a big question has to be answered as to why he really is in love with Oliver the way he is, why he’s so attached to Oliver? For me, and I brought this to the writers, and they completely agreed, and we’ll see some of it, is that he’s the brother he couldn’t save, or that he can save. Andy was his brother he couldn’t save. Oliver’s a brother he can save. We’ll see some of that.

David Ramsey: We’ll see. A hiatus and a half ago I did a small movie called Draft Day with Kevin Costner. Now there’s another movie coming out called Nailed with Jake Gyllenhaal that Jessica Biel and I did several years ago that is just now coming out.

Nuke: Oh, you’re in that? They changed the title.

David Ramsey: They changed the title and director. I don’t know what’s going to happen now because they had to cut it together because there was a problem with funding.

David Ramsey: Yeah, for the most part. We’ll see. They might have a stand-in for the rest of the scenes I didn’t do. Who knows? So we’ll see what happens with that. It’s a crazy business.

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