Stephen Amell Says His Daughter, 11, Helped Him Read Lines for Suits LA Pilot — Including This NSFW Quote (Exclusive)

Stephen Amell got a little help from his real-life family to step into the Suits universe for the new NBC spinoff series Suits LA.

The Arrow star, 43 exclusively told PEOPLE at the Suits LA premiere in Los Angeles on Feb. 20 that his and wife Cassandra Jean’s 11-year-old daughter, Maverick, read lines from the show’s pilot with him when she was 10 so he could prepare to audition for the legal drama series.

One NSFW quote from the script apparently has become an ongoing joke in the Amell household. The quote comes from a conversation between Stephen’s character Ted Black and another character. 

“There’s this line where Ted says, and it’s very early on, so I don’t think I’m spoiling too much where I’m trying to sign this client, and the character says to me, ‘Have they signed?’ And they say, ‘If you’re not signing right now, I’ll cut off my left ball if they’re not signing right now,’ ” he recalls. 

“And then they sign and my character goes, ‘Left ball lives.’ My daughter thought that was the funniest thing she’s ever heard,” Stephen continues. “Even now, whenever I mention that I’m going to work, she’s like, ‘Left ball lives, Dad. Left ball lives.’ ”

The Amells, who married in December 2012, welcomed Maverick in October 2013. They welcomed their second baby, Bowen, in May 2022.

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Asked at the premiere if Maverick is old enough to watch Suits LA, the father of two expressed why she’s allowed to watch it. 

“Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, adding a caveat. “I don’t know if we’d let her watch it if I wasn’t on it, but when you’re on it, there’s a special dispensation given for children.”

Stephen plays prosecutor Ted Black, whom NBC describes as a “charismatic force of nature who puts his own needs above others.”

In an interview with PEOPLE in 2024, Stephen said he’s “very excited” for his role in the spinoff series because “it’s something very new and different for me — talky-talky, not punchy-punchy.”

The Suits LA logline elaborated on Stephen’s character: “Ted Black, a former federal prosecutor from New York, has reinvented himself representing the most powerful clients in Los Angeles. His firm is at a crisis point, and in order to survive he must embrace a role he held in contempt his entire career. Ted is surrounded by a stellar group of characters who test their loyalties to both Ted and each other while they can’t help but mix their personal and professional lives. All of this is going on while events from years ago slowly unravel that led Ted to leave behind everything and everyone he loved.”

The series also stars Lex Scott Davis, Josh McDermitt and Bryan Greenberg.

Suits LA premieres Feb. 23 at 9 p.m. ET on NBC.