The CW’s “Arrow” which premiered in 2012, has become a mainstay. The series is based on the Green Arrow character from DC Comics. It was the beginning of a franchise that now includes “The Flash,” “Supergirl,” and “Legends of Tomorrow.” among others. The network’s ratings skyrocketed as a result of the collective series. They’ve also caused controversy, as seen by the current fan outcry against “The Flash.” Now, the treatment of Stephen Amell, who plays the main character on “Arrow” has gotten a lot of attention.

Amell, who had guest parts on programs like 90210 and The Vampire Diaries before joining Arrow, stated that despite being the show’s star, he didn’t make as much as some of his co-stars in the early days. The pilot episode of Arrow aired on October 10, 2012.

On Tuesday, the actor appeared as a guest on former Smallville actor Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, where he discussed his time on the superhero series.

“I didn’t really care what the deal was,” Amell stated of his first main role on Arrow. “It was a fair deal. I had no quote. I had never been a series regular before; I was a series regular on Hung, technically, but I wasn’t going to be bumped up to a series regular price until the fourth season—if there was a fourth season, which there wasn’t. It was a very, very fair deal. I mean, the first thing they did was try to hire me as a Canadian.”

That was a “was a big no-no,” since it meant he’d make less money and wouldn’t be eligible for residuals. “That’s the first conversation that they have and my agent shut it down immediately. Basically, the business affairs person comes back, semi-embarrassed, and says, ‘You know, I gotta ask…'”

Despite his inexperience, he indicated throughout the podcast that he was not afraid to defend himself.

Mathieu Young/The CW

“We didn’t do a lot of reshoots in the early days,” he recalled, “but they were not happy with a couple elements of Episode 5.”

So Amell was asked in to recreate some scenes with co-star Katie Cassidy, and that’s when he snapped and asserted himself once more.

“We had been working six-day weeks for a couple of weeks, coming in Sundays and doing that. I’m in the Arrow costume, I’ve got the f–king eye makeup on, and it was 11:15 at night or whatever. The second assistant director said to me, ‘Your call time tomorrow is 11:15.’ And I said, ‘I’m not done for the day. I can’t. Base camp is 20 minutes away and I’ve got to take my makeup off. It’s not my turnaround. I’m exhausted. I’m going to take my turnaround.’ And he said, ‘Contractually, your call time is 11:15 and I don’t have to give you any explanation,'” the actor recalled. ” I said, ‘OK, I’m going to tell you this right now, and I’m going to do it in front of people so that everybody knows this: I’m going to get in the car tomorrow at the exact time that I get in the car tonight, and not a minute sooner. And if you had handled this with a little more tact, maybe we could have done something, but you didn’t. So, when everybody asks why we are starting later than everyone wants to, you need to tell them it’s your fault.'”

“You do get pushed around,” he said, “but I recognized my value, I think, pretty early on.”

“The only issue I had in the first couple of years was, I think, I was the fourth or fifth highest-paid cast member up until the end of the second season because I had no quote,” Amell, 37, told Rosenbaum, who portrayed the villain on another CW superhero program, Smallville. “They gave me what they termed as a ‘gift’ after Season 2; it’s them raising my salary without asking for anything in return. My thing was very simple. I just said, ‘Quite frankly, I work way more than everybody else.’ Especially in Season 1 and Season 2 — it was way more disproportionate than it is now. I think somebody was making X. They’re like, ‘OK, your new salary is going to be X minus, like, $1,250 per episode.’ And I go, ‘What are you doing? That’s not the most amount of money.’”

They said, ‘Yeah, no. It’s the most amount of money over the course of 23 episodes, because the person above you is not all episodes produced.’ I was like, ‘OK, technically you’re right…’ That leaves a little bit of a s–tty taste in my mouth. Just a little.”

Based on a survey of network executives, agents, and others, TV Guide reported in 2012 that Amell made $30,000 each episode. Amell’s current net worth, according to Celebrity Net Worth and other comparable sources, is $2.5 million.