Fangirl Friday: Colin Donnell

Actor, singer and all-around awesomely awesome performer Colin Donnell is in the process of a long in coming, but well-deserved break-out. Donnell is currently enjoying a weekly gig on NBC’s freshman medical drama Chicago Med. However, he is probably best known for his role as Tommy Merlyn on the first season of Arrow, the CW’s crazily popular superhero drama. It was on Arrow where I first put a name to the face I had been seeing since his musical theater days.

AsDonnell fell into form on Arrow, Tommy developed into a truly interesting character in his own right. I YouTubed the young actor, and quickly discovered that I had seen him before. As I confessed in Wednesday’s blog entry... I’m a huge musical theater nerd. There were backyard performances of Les Miserables... but I digress... Prior to his break-out in Arrow, Donnell was a seasoned musical theater performer, having previously been on Broadway starring as Billy Crocker opposite the amazing Sutton Foster (now on TVLand’s Younger) in the popular and critically acclaimed revival of Anything Goes. (See below for a clip of Donnell and co-star Laura Osnes singing DeLovely). According to his page on the Internet Broadway Database, Donnell was nominated for a Tony for his work on Anything Goes. From the few clips existing of his stage work, it is clear that he possesses an incredible charisma as a performer, which comes across clearly, even in the unforgiving environment of live theater.

When Arrow premiered in 2012, we all watched with great interest to see where this new superhero show (outside of the treasured Marvel branding) would go. At the outset, the character of Tommy Merlyn is fairly generic (if not a tad cliche). He’s the spoiled, rich best friend of the hero. He’s the Harry Osbourne to Stephen Amell’s Peter Parker. As the first season went on, Tommy developed as a character by leaps and bounds as the narrative arch between he and Oliver changed and was further complicated by Tommy’s knowledge of Oliver’s vigilante persona. Donnell thrived as Tommy was allowed to evolve, playing the role with a feeling of hurt and betrayal, rather than simply anger. There is a sense of vulnerability which allows the audience to identify with him, rather than simply vilifying Tommy as the character standing in opposition to the show’s hero.

I can speak to this personally. With, Tommy's eventual fate, the show’s writers ripped out my little fangirl feels and stomped them into teeny tiny pieces on the writers room floor. On the day the episode aired, I had just finished an Arrow spec script (essentially fan-fiction... in script form) where
Tommy played an important role, and became the Dark Archer by the end of Act Five. I was proud. I flipped onto social media, the night before the episode, “Wait... they did what to Tommy?”... Yes, I shipped Tommy and Laurel. What of it?

Since his run on Arrow, Donnell has seen his career rise exponentially. He moved on to the critically acclaimed Showtime drama The Affair, and then in 2015 he was signed onto Chicago Med, continuing the development of a character he played in two episodes of the NBC drama Chicago Fire. He’s definitely an actor to watch; hopefully, he has nothing but bigger and better things to come.

*Check out the respective pages for the YouTube users posting the above videos. I give them all the credit in the world.*

.