‘Arrow’ Executive Producer Marc Guggenheim On ‘Pure Evil’ Villain Damien Darhk

Neal McDonough is coming to “Arrow” Season 4 as Damien Darhk, and there’s nothing good about the show’s new villain.

“Damien’s a different kind of villain than we’ve had on the show before,” “Arrow” Executive Producer and co-showrunner Marc Guggenheim told Access Hollywood recently at Comic-con. “He’s not as centurion as Ra’s, he’s not as looney tune as Slade, he’s not as — and people will be surprised I use this word — but he’s not as noble as Malcolm Merlyn. He’s pure evil. We wanted someone who was truly, truly malevolent. We’ve never done that on the show before. All of our big bads always thought they were doing… the wrong thing for the right reason. This guy does the wrong thing for the wrong reasons.”

Damien was mentioned in Season 3 as the original rival to Matt Nable’s Ra’s al Ghul. Neal was recently cast in the villainous role for Season 4, and according to Guggenheim, the actor himself has helped inspired the team behind the show.

WATCH: ‘Arrow’ EP Marc Guggenheim Talks ‘Pure Evil’ Villain Damien Darhk

“When we found out Neal was interested, it energized us in a way you can’t even imagine because Neal is such an amazing actor and the first thing we did was we wanted someone who was a great actor, but then, what Neal also brings to it is an intensity and a darkness… I hate to say darkness because it’s such a pun, but a darkness to the character of Damien,” Guggenheim added.

Guggenheim said Damien is being introduced into the drama quickly.

“It’s a bad situation to have this guy coming in. And the other thing that we’re doing that’s different is in past seasons, you’ve had to wait ’til usually the mid-season finale to meet the big bad and have Oliver confront the big bad,” he said. “We are coming out of the gate strong. We’re not waiting and actually, that itself has really energized the show and it infuses even the ‘villain of the week’ episodes with an epic-ness that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

“Arrow” Season 4 premieres October 7 on The CW.

Jolie Lash

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