‘Arrow’ Scoop: Janina Gavankar Talks Oliver & McKenna’s ‘Sexy’ Future
Plus, Janina tells what she loves most about working with ‘prince’ Stephen Amell and her ‘good friend’ Colton Haynes!
It seems like Arrow has been introducing its viewers to a new tragedy every week, but is there anything more tragic than the Mr. And Mrs. Smith-style romance between Oliver (Stephen Amell) and McKenna (Janina Gavankar)? The badge-wielding beauty has no idea the man she’s dating is also the “vigilante” she’s hunting — and Janina tells HollywoodLife.com their relationship is, somehow, going to get even more complicated from here.
“Everything changes,” the True Blood star says of the Feb. 27 episode, which finds Oliver and McKenna at a definite crossroad. “Her priorities change. In this moment she wants the vigilante more [than she wants a relationship with Oliver],” but methinks that won’t always be the case.
As for getting to lock lips with Stephen on a weekly basis, Janina says she has no complaints: “He’s been absolutely a prince to work with. … We met at Comic-Con, and we bonded over having sexy time on HBO.” (Stephen cut his teeth on Hung, while Janina’s True Blood character is almost never fully clothed.)
Still, Janina says confrontations between McKenna and Oliver — in hooded form, at least — are “inevitable. She’s a badass, so if she can be the one to get the vigilante, it’d be incredible! She wants to get him, and she is very good at her job.”
But that doesn’t mean things won’t stay hot between them. In fact, Janina teases a particularly “sexy” moment on the March 20 episode — yeah, there’s a mini hiatus coming — that she and Stephen had to tone down for The CW!
“Episode 117 is sexy,” she promises. “But it’s funny, because we had this big conversation about what’s going to happen. I come from the school of thought where, if I’m going to be the girl who says you should be proud of your body and have no fear about the vessel you were born in, I really fully mean it. … But when you go from HBO to a network, you have to curb it. There are babies watching.”
And while Janina enjoys getting to kick some ass in Starling City, she actually appreciates the quieter moments even more.
“McKenna has moved up in the ranks pretty quickly in the precinct, which means she’s worked her ass off and has been single-minded and focused,” Janina explains. “That’s the only way you can move up the ranks, period. So she’s had no social life, and here’s Oliver Queen — the infamous Oliver Queen. It was nice being her at the times she allows herself to be girly and vulnerable, because she doesn’t allow herself to do it often.
Janina’s stint on Arrow also reunites her with former Gates co-star Colton Haynes, and even though McKenna doesn’t get to share any screen time with Roy, Janina tells me she and Colton made good use of their time together in Canada.
“Colton … is one of my closest friends,” she says. “He and I managed to get our hotel rooms side by side, So we were basically roommates for the whole time I was up there. I’m a terrible person in the morning, but we’d have our list of things we wanted to accomplish, even on our days off. He’d literally wake up, pass my door and yell, ‘I’m going to Starbucks!’ And I’d yell back, ‘OK, I’ll see you in a minute.’ We had a really nice time.”
Filming with Stephen and hanging out with Colton? I can imagine worse jobs.
‘Arrow’ fans, do you like McKenna and Oliver as a couple? Drop me a comment with your thoughts on their relationship below:
— Andy Swift
More Arrow on HollywoodLife.com:
- Former ‘Teen Wolf’ Star Colton Haynes Lands On The CW’s ‘Arrow’
- The CW Renews ‘Vampire Diaries,’ ‘Arrow’ & ‘Supernatural’
- Fall 2012: ‘Arrow,’ ‘Nashville’ & More New TV Shows We Can’t Wait To See
