Memories From The Set: Anna Hopkins

ARROW

After TVLine replayed for Hopkins her very first scene as playboy Oliver Queen's pregnant girlfriend, Hopkins raved of scene partner Susanna Thompson, "She was the best, I love her so much. Right after this, she was going on a trip to Paris, and I had gone to school there, so I remember sitting down for, like, two hours writing out recommendations for her."

As for landing the top-secret role.... Having previously auditioned to play Sara Lance, Hopkins was later brought in to read for the part of a "journalist." After booking the gig and just as she was about to head to Vancouver, she got the 411 on who she really would be playing: Samantha Clayton, mother of Oliver's son William. For the next few years, starting with an appearance on The Flash, "I would get these little golden nuggets of like, 'OK, come to Vancouver!'" she smiles. "I loved working on that set, and I love Stephen [Amell]. He's such a good guy."

ARROW (CONT'D)

In the Season 5 finale, Samantha was one of 13 characters whose fate was left up in the air when Prometheus blew up the island of Lian Yu. "I ran into Stephen [Amell] that summer, and I was like, 'So... did I make it?'" the actress says. "He was like, 'No, you're dying,' and so I went back to do that last death scene" for the Season 6 opener. Meaning, Samantha is thus far the only confirmed casualty out of more than a dozen people. "Yep, true. I died," Hopkins shrugs. After all, "I only have, like, normal-people skills!"

Fun fact: Hopkins not only knows that TV son William is now in his 30s (in Season 7's flash-forwards), she actually knows the young man. "When I first moved to Toronto, Ben Lewis worked at this casting house, as a reader. When I ran into him last summer, he was like, 'Hey, I was just cast as your son,' and I was like, 'Whaaat?!'"

BAD BLOOD

In Season 1 of the Canadian drama, Declan Gardiner (played by Kim Coates) emerged as king of the Montreal drug trade. In Season 2, which has yet to come Stateside, Hopkins plays Teresa Langana, a crime scion who arrives from Calabria, Italy with her twin brother Christian to claim a piece of the pie. "She's pretty f–kin' ruthless," Hopkins smiles. "The writer of this show actually wrote Barney's Version — which was the first movie that I ever did, with Paul Giamatti — and they weren't finding anybody for the role, so it was kind of a last-minute thing. Like, 'Can we see you for this?' and I just went." Hailing from Europe as Teresa does, Hopkins worked with a dialect coach on an accent that she describes as Italian with a bit of French, "but they speak English really, really well, because they went to boarding school." Describing the twins' dynamic, Hopkins says, "They're very close. A little too close sometimes." (No, not in that way.)

DEFIANCE

"Defiance was a game changer," Hopkins says of her run as Earth Republic soldier/propaganda filmmaker Jessica "Berlin" Rainer. "When I read the character description, I was just so excited because she was so very interesting. It was one of the larger roles that I ever auditioned for, and they had plans for her that I wasn't necessarily privy to at the beginning, but the material that we got... you could tell that there was going to be lot for her. I learned so much on that show."

Including....

DEFIANCE (CONT'D)

...how to keep warm during long shoots in the frigid Toronto outdoors with a new friend, in series lead Julie Benz.

Braving Celsius temps that often went into the negative double-digits, "We would cover ourselves in as many heat pads as human bodies could take, and hug each other a lot!" recalls Hopkins. For good measure, once back at base camp, "We would then cuddle with our dogs" in warm, cozy trailers.

THE EXPANSE

In Season 3 of the Amazon-bound space drama, Hopkins played Monica Stuart, a documentary filmmaker. And for at least one hot second, it appeared Monica would be holding her camera with some extremely demonic hands! Juggling this role with Shadowhunters at the time, "There was a scheduling mishap" in which Hopkins — with Lilith's frightful fingernails still quite glued on — learned she was needed early the next morning on The Expanse. And only a professional is able to remove such nails.

"We called the director, and he was like, 'No way [to keeping them on]. It's f–king space, it's not going to work." Luckily, after failing to find a 24-hour nail salon, "They got a nail woman to come in at like 5 in the morning and spend an hour ungluing them."

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

In this 2005 Lifetime miniseries led by Donald Sutherland and Mira Sorvino, "I played a young girl from Romania who ends up getting trafficked, but her survival tactic is to help her traffickers recruit people, so it's a pretty sad state of affairs," Hopkins explains. "That was my first job ever, and I didn't know how anything worked. My agent called me, while I was in school, and said, 'You got the job, and you're going to Prague next week,' so yeah, I traveled to Prague and had the best time of my life!"

KILLJOYS

During this Syfy series' most recent season, Hopkins popped up as Fairuza, a Scarback monk turned... dominatrix?! "That was crazy. Those hair extensions and bangs... it was an awesome look. And the role was really fun, too," she recalls. "I wish it had been a longer stint."

LOST GIRL

The first of what would be many Syfy roles for Hopkins was in the "Clear Eyes, Fae Hearts" episode of this supernatural drama. "I had auditioned for that show for a while because it shoots in Toronto, and the role I finally got was a bitchy cheerleader," she recalls with a laugh. And yes, Brinkley White was just a "normal, human" waver of pom-poms — no supernatural fun for the actress just yet. "I got to play, like, the quintessential, catty cheerleader," from which Hopkins had no high school experience to draw, though she says her dancer background came in handy.

NIKITA

Hopkins' first guest-starring role was in a Season 3 episode of The CW's spy drama, playing a "bookish, young woman who got kidnapped." Amid that high drama, luckily, was at least one friendly face. "Years earlier in Montreal, I did a TV-movie with Dillon Casey [who played Sean], so when I went onto Nikita and we saw each other, I was like, 'Do you remember...?' I also worked with Maggie [Q], who was fantastic."

SHADOWHUNTERS

Despite that explosive exit, at some point during Season 3B (premiering Feb. 25) viewers will see Lilith again. "I can only say this because Todd [Slavkin] leaked some spoilers, but yeah, I'm back in Edom, and I want to get back because my son was essentially revived right as I got sent back," Hopkins shares. "I think Lilith is kind of curious as to what's happening."

And by "curious," she kinda sort means wickedly bitter. "Lilith doesn't take well to betrayal...," Hopkins teases. "We'll just leave it at that!"