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'Arrow' star Stephen Amell puts new spin on Casey Jones hero in 'Ninja Turtles'

By Karen Butler
Stephen Amell arrives on the red carpet at the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows" world premiere at Madison Square Garden on May 22, 2016 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI
1 of 7 | Stephen Amell arrives on the red carpet at the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows" world premiere at Madison Square Garden on May 22, 2016 in New York City. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

NEW YORK, May 31 (UPI) -- Canadian actor Stephen Amell says he was happy to put a new spin on the fan-favorite character of Casey Jones in the live-action/CGI hybrid movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

Jones is a vigilante who has been played in various installments in the Turtles franchise by Elias Koteas, Chris Evans and Josh Peck. This is the first time Amell is playing the part.

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"They did me a big favor by giving Casey Jones, who has been in the Turtles canon since the inception of the Turtles... Basically, they gave him a unique backstory in this movie in that he is a corrections officer," Amell said at a recent New York press conference.

"We don't get in this movie, quite yet, the full-fledged, five-alarm fire Casey Jones that a lot of fans of the Turtles and the cartoon and the comics are used to. This is a Casey Jones who is trying to figure out what his path is. So, we get glimpses of that. But the fact that my motivation is that I've bumped up against the idea of being a police detective in the New York City Police Department my entire life and it hasn't worked out? That allowed me to take Casey Jones and make it my own. So, without that backstory I would have been... I mean, I would have figured it out hopefully, but this helped a lot."

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Co-starring Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Tyler Perry, Brian Tee, Gary Anthony Williams and Stephen Farrelly, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows opens nationwide Friday.

Amell, 35, is best known for playing the titular superhero on Arrow.

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