Australian Movie and Comic Expo (AMC) was held last weekend at the Melbourne showgrounds with lots of guests that came to see and speak with their fans including, Michael Rowe, Rick Cosnett, Dichen Lachman, Lou Diamond Phillips, Claudia Wells and many more.
I got the chance to have an extended chat with Michael Rowe, whose recent role had him suiting up for the ‘bad’ guy, Deadshot, in the CW’s Arrow.
Michael came from a small town, Newfoundland, in Canada where his main passion was music. He joined a band, Bucket Truck, and did a whole bunch of traveling and touring. When his band broke up in 2007 he wasn’t sure what do to in that point of his life, so he packed up all his stuff and drove to the west side of Canada and joined his youngest brother in helping and supporting him in his new adventure in film making.
“I started helping him out with the technical side of things, helping him behind the camera but he didn’t really know any actors so he got me into it, and I liked it more than I thought I would and it just filled that hole that I was missing from my band,” explains Michael.
Michael continued working with his brother and felt a creative spark that he hadn’t felt for a while and decided to switch gears and focus on creating small productions that mainly was on comedy side of things.
“I pick things that scare me the most and try to tackle them,” explains Michael, “I highly recommend it; if you force yourself further from your comfort zone all the things you want are there. And it forces you to evolve throughout your life and get better.”
Coming from working with his brother mainly doing comedy productions, he was shocked, however pleased, when got this super dark, dangerous role as Deadshot in Arrow. To him it didn’t feel like work to throw on an eye patch, kick arse and fired guns, he felt like he hit the lottery with this role.
To those that want to see Deadshot back in Arrow, it could be a possibility and the showrunners have not completely ruled that out and Michael is definitely open to the chance to get back into that role. If he had a choice of which character he got the chance to clash heads with, it would definitely be Deathstroke, played by Manu Bennett, even though they didn’t have any scenes together off the screens Michael and Manu really hit it off.
“In this profession the work feels like the audition to get the opportunity to work, the thing you get paid for isn’t work, it’s play. I’ve made a lot of good friends on [the Arrow] set and anytime they want me to throw on that costume, I’m there.”
“I guess to play a bad guy you have to understand why he is the way he is and to be able to sympathize with that. So everything he did that was ‘evil’ or ‘bad’ on the show I had to know why he was doing it and support and respect his decision.”
Right now Michael has some small fun projects coming up that he can’t give away too many details. He will be playing a character for the guys that do the show Super Power Beat Down on the internet and has recently been approached by Adi Shankar, who produced the Dark Power Rangers short film, to be a part of his next production, so everyone keep your eyes open for Michael around on the internet.
Michael will also be attending Armageddon this weekend in New Zealand, joining Manu Bennett, Sean Maher, Rick Cosnett, John Wesley Shipp, Robert Maschio and other guests.
