Stephen Amell is opening up his COVID-19 diagnosis.
Months after having a full-on panic attack – and later talking about it – in the middle of recording an interview for Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, the Arrow star returned to once again talk about a difficult moment in his life: receiving his coronavirus diagnosis.
“I’m a retired superhero, but take one last thing from me,” he said in a recent episode. “If I’ve had any anxiety, I know that we speak about this sometimes on the pod and, obviously you know, I had a panic attack on your podcast. Take it from a guy whose only sense of anxiety and panic has been the concept of contracting COVID.”
Stephen says he “never worried about the lethal aspect” of the virus, but getting diagnosed with COVID-19 sparked anxiety about “letting hundreds of people down” – they had just started filming his new series, Heels.
“I didn’t have anxiety about the fact that I would give it to other people, which again I possibly did, which is unsettling in and of itself. But you have to understand that because of this anxiety, I have actively, actively, actively tried to avoid contracting this virus,” he explained, adding, “And guess what? I f–king got it anyway, so be smart. If you’re being smart, stay smart. And if you’re not, you’re just dragging this s–t on longer for everybody else.”
Stephen’s symptoms included dizziness and loss of appetite – he lost 15 pounds in three weeks! And it all started when one day, “I woke up and it was the strangest thing. My f–king right ear was plugged and I was hot and cold.”
“…when I got the positive test, for me it became holy f–k. I just destroyed this show because I’m No. 1 on the call sheet and I work every day more or less… I’m in my head going, ‘S–t, they’re going to have to shut down the production. We’re not yet done with the first block of two episodes. Did I just ruin this?’” he added.
“I’m incredibly fortunate that if I have to go into isolation, I have a job waiting for me on the other side,” he continued. “Again, thank you very much to Starz for being so supportive and what they did over the past three weeks, the show shut down for one day. What they were able to do is mind boggling, quite frankly. It just goes to show that they were prepared for it, but not everyone has the luxury of taking two weeks off. In fact, most people don’t. We are in the midst of a global pandemic and times are tough for a lot of people.”
Back in January, Stephen guested on the podcast’s episode, which was described with the synopsis: “Coming off the ending of his 8 year tenure with Arrow, Stephen opens up a lot about being at his wits’ end and being completely burnt out mentally, physically, and emotionally. This all leads to Stephen suffering a panic attack mid show… leaving in an unprecedented manner… and then returning with enough bravery to re-address his current mental health.”
At the time, he also went on Twitter to talk about what happened during the show. “I did Rosey’s podcast after Arrow ended. We had to cut it short because I had a full on panic attack. It wasn’t pretty. I came back a few weeks ago to chat about it. I was in a really bad spot and I’m happy to report that I’m doing much better. Listen please :)”
