Cody Rhodes Reveals Who Came Up With the WWE Reference For His Arrow Appearance

– Cody Rhodes spoke with Collider about his appearance in Wednesday’s episode of Arrow. Some highlights are below:

On who’s idea it was to have the drug named Stardust: “I believe it was Marc Guggenheim. Actually, I think everybody agreed that there would be some sort of a wink to the audience who enjoyed the initial interaction with Stardust and the Arrow at WWE’s SummerSlam. It concerned me a little bit because there are tons of Arrow fans who do not like wrestling, or maybe they’re not aware of it and they don’t intend to be aware of it. So, the last thing I wanted to do was make it so obvious that it was, “Here’s the dumb wrestler who gives a dumb wrestler performance. Bye dumb wrestler!” But when I saw it all together, it’s just simply a good wink at the audience and, in a way, it bridges the experience from the wrestling that Stephen and I did to being on set. When I did the character of Stardust, for me to play the character, I had to give myself something in my mind for why, in eight years of being Cody Rhodes and myself, I would want to be Stardust. I always thought of it as some sort of drug or brainwashing, so it’s perfect. I think it bridges the experiences.”

On how he prepared for it: “I’m so happy to hear that Rick Gonzalez said nice things about me. A couple mornings on the way to the side were hour-long drives and all we talked about was fast food ’cause he were both on a diet. Stephen is ripped, so everybody has gotta be ripped, so we couldn’t eat anything we wanted. So, all we had were these food orgy discussions. But to prepare, it was easier to plug into being a villain because that’s what I’m used to. I didn’t want to be over the top, especially coming from wrestling where everything is over the top. I wanted to provide some nuance to it. It might look over the top, but I wanted to actually be connected to it. I had a really brief experience in L.A. – and I’m not going to pretend that it was long – when I was a teenager and I attended the Howard Fine Acting Studio. Howard Fine is an amazing teacher, and he’s always stayed in touch with me. Even with wrestling, he’s helped me, and he was the first person I mentioned this to. Even if the character is something that seems ridiculous on paper, there’s a human element to everything. Otherwise, we don’t connect with it. So, even in these brief scenes, that was the goal with everyone. I can look like an absolute zombie drug dealer/killer, but I wanted to add some humanity to it.”