Stephen Amell Explains Why He Takes the Blame for 'Suits: LA' Failure

Stephen Amell believes he is at fault for the failure of Suits spinoff series Suits: LA.

The 44-year-old actor was on the Tuesday (February 24) episode of Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum podcast where he opened up about the show, which was canceled after just one season on NBC.

Michael started out by noting the last time Stephen was on the show, he was excited about Suits: LA.

“What happened?” he asked his guest.

“It wasn’t good enough,” Stephen said bluntly.

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The host then pivoted, inquiring as to whether or not the Arrow star thought it was good enough and admitting it’s a difficult question to answer.

“Anything that ends not on your terms is a failure,” he responded.

However, Stephen doesn’t consider it a “complete failure,” because he’s done two pilots so far and has been lucky enough that both have made it to series.

“Ultimately, I think that the blame rests with me,” he continued. “I think it does, because whatever problem you have with the show—because I think that there were issues—but it’s my job to solve those. To smooth them over. To gloss them up with some type of performance or something that, tangible or otherwise, covers up those mistakes.”

He thinks if he had done something “magnetic” or “charismatic,” it would have fixed “those problems.”

“And I didn’t do that,” he continued.

Stephen said he didn’t find that with his character Ted Black, a cocky former federal prosecutor turned entertainment lawyer.

Additionally, behind the scenes, he said it seemed like creator and showrunner Aaron Korsh was running into a struggle with the network regarding what they wanted the show to be.

“It just seemed like what he wanted to do and what they wanted to do were different,” he said.

The actor noted they’d been hopeful for a second season to get the chance to retool things, but the network chose to pull the plug instead.

Michael pushed back a little on the idea it was all Stephen‘s fault, but the Heels alum argued that if it had been successful, he’d get a “disproportionate amount of credit” so it’s “only fair” if he stands in front and takes the blame.

“I’m the lead of the series, and it didn’t work,” he concluded.

However, despite all of that, Stephen praised the people he worked with and said it was overall a “wonderful” experience.

The full conversation between Michael and Stephen about Suits: LA is queued up in the video embedded below.

And the good news is for the Canadian-born star is that he’s already got a new project in the works. He has been cast as David Hasselhoff‘s son in a Fox’s Baywatch reboot. More details here!