Stephen Amell from Arrow and Heels tries to walk back comments about strikes

Yesterday, a clip began to spread online of Arrow and Heels star Stephen Amell being asked about the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike while at a convention, with Amell claiming that he supports his union but that he does not support the idea of striking—calling it “myopic” and a “reductive negotiating tactic.” The comment has generated a lot of unsurprising backlash, with even some actors from The CW’s Arrowverse criticizing Amell, and the backlash has now spread wide enough that the actor has felt the need to try and clarify what he said about the strike.

In a lengthy Instagram post (written out in the comments, so it’s a little hard to track all of it), Amell suggested that his comments were misunderstood or “unintentionally misrepresented” and taken out of context, so he basically broke down every line of what he said at the convention to try and walk back the anti-strike impression that he initially gave. The basic takeaway from all of it, though, is that when he said “I do not support striking, I don’t,” what he meant was that he doesn’t like the idea of striking but, “we have to do what we have to do,” and that when he said strikes are “a reductive negotiating tactic,” what he meant was that it’s “emotionally frustrating” to be on strike even if he understands why SAG-AFTRA is doing it “from an intellectual perspective.”

Amell also addressed the fact that he plugged Heels during the convention appearance, which he’s not supposed to be doing as per SAG-AFTRA’s strike rules, saying that he has “no clue” what he was trying to say but that it was “perhaps” meant to just be a “shoutout to our crew and cast” who worked so hard on the show. He ended his post by saying that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and by insisting that he stands with SAG-AFTRA, jokingly requesting that nobody “whip any hard fruit” when (he said “when”) they see him on a picket line.

Still, while a number of his followers have been supportive of his right to have an opinion, others have pointed out that he has been regularly promoting Heels on his Instagram, including in a since-deleted video where he talked about how proud he was to work on some unnamed thing while cheekily sliding the camera over to show a Heels billboard behind him—seemingly flouting the strike rules.

The A.V. Club has reached out to a representative for Amell for any further comments, but we have not heard back.