Posted in: CW, streaming, TV | Tagged: arrow, arrowverse, dcu, Legends of Tomorrow, marc guggenheim

Arrowverse: Guggenheim on 2 Characters Who Were Challenging To Cast

Arrowverse's Marc Guggenheim shared why one character from Arrow and one character from DC's Legends of Tomorrow were challenging to cast.

Published Fri, 31 May 2024 18:38:09 -0500

by Ray Flook

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When it comes to learning a lot about what went into creating and keeping the shared universe running, "Arrowverse" co-mastermind Marc Guggenheim continues proving to be one of the best sources of intel. For this go-around, Guggenheim was asked on Twitter/X earlier this week who the most difficult character was in the "Arrowverse" to cast. In the latest edition of his Substack newsletter LegalDispatch ("One-Hundred"), Guggenheim answered that very question – but not before giving credit where credit is due to Casting Directors David Rapaport and Lyndsey Baldasare, "the ones who found Stephen [Amell], Grant [Gustin], and Melissa [Benoist] and made sure that those were the very first auditions placed before producers." As for the roles that would answer the question, Guggenheim noted that "the two roles that first spring to mind" were Juliana Harkavy's Dinah Drake/Black Canary from Arrow and Tala Ashe's Zari Tarazi from DC's Legends of Tomorrow – but for two very different reasons.

"The casting process for Dinah Drake actually went down to the wire. It took us forever to find an actress we were happy with, but once we cast her, the network said that 'we could do better.' Personally, I wasn't so sure," Guggenheim shared when it came to casting Dinah. "Not with the very small amount of time we had remaining until production. But then Juliana Harkavy became available at the literal last minute, came in, and blew us all away." As for Zari, it came down to Guggenheim believing as they headed into the process "that the role would be incredibly difficult to cast" – only to be pleasantly surprised.

"Zari was challenging in a very different way. I originally thought that the role would be incredibly difficult to cast on account of the fact that we insisted on a Muslim actor to play this important Muslim character," Guggenheim shared. "But as I recall, Tala Ashe came in to audition relatively early in the process and won the role in the room. I think I turned to fellow showrunner Phil Klemmer and was like, 'That was a lot easier than I expected.'" As a wrap-up to his response and in appreciation for the question, Guggenheim also shared a look at costume designs for both Dinah and Zari.

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