What Happened to Emily Bett Rickards? Newlywed Film Star in 2026

If you watched superhero TV in the 2010s, you remember Felicity Smoak: the fast-talking IT genius who wandered into Oliver Queen’s secret lair on Arrow and never left. She was supposed to be a one-off. Instead she became the heart of the show and one of the most loved characters in The CW’s whole Arrowverse. Then, before Arrow’s final season, Emily Bett Rickards walked away. So whatever happened to her? Here’s where her path has led, from small theaters to a wrestling biopic to a summer wedding.

01Profile

A Vancouver kid who got her first TV credit on a show filmed in her hometown, and turned it into a character fans still quote more than a decade later. Not a bad debut.

02The Rise: From Film School to Felicity

A fast start in Vancouver

Rickards grew up in Vancouver, graduated from high school early, and went through the acting essentials program at the Vancouver Film School. Vancouver was, and still is, one of North America’s busiest production hubs, and it was there that she landed her first television job. That job happened to be on a new CW series called Arrow.

Before that, she’d picked up a small film credit in the family movie Flicka: Country Pride (2012). Nobody could have predicted what came next.

The one-episode role that kept going

Felicity Smoak first appeared in Arrow’s third episode in 2012, as a Queen Consolidated tech employee Oliver asks for help. The part was meant to be a guest spot. But Rickards brought such rapid-fire, awkward, warm energy to Felicity that the character clicked instantly with viewers, and with the writers. She kept coming back, and by the second season she was a series regular.

From there, Felicity became central: a core member of Team Arrow, eventually Oliver’s love interest and wife, and a crossover presence across the franchise. Rickards reprised the role on The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl, and voiced her in the animated web series Vixen. The “Olicity” pairing grew into one of the most talked-about (and debated) romances on network TV.

Stepping outside the Arrowverse

Even at the height of the show, Rickards took other work. She had a supporting role in the Oscar-nominated drama Brooklyn (2015), starring Saoirse Ronan, and she appeared in the indie comedy-drama Funny Story, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018. They were modest parts, but they hinted at the kind of career she was interested in.

03Stepping Away From Arrow

In early 2019, news broke that Rickards would not return for Arrow’s eighth and final season. Fans were stunned; Felicity had been part of the show’s backbone for years. But reports at the time described the exit as the actress’s own decision rather than a creative choice by producers, and said the show had known about it well in advance. Rickards indicated she felt Felicity’s story had reached its natural end, and that she wanted to step back from television to focus on theater.

Felicity was written out in the season 7 finale. Rickards did not appear through nearly all of season 8, but she came back for the series finale in January 2020 to close out Felicity and Oliver’s story, a gesture a lot of longtime viewers appreciated.

Years later, she’s been more open about how she felt at the end. In a 2025 interview with TVLine, she said she thought Felicity “got a little lost in the later seasons,” and that she had raised concerns at the time, though she added she would be clearer about them today. She also acknowledged she wasn’t a writer on the show. It’s a measured take, not a complaint about her colleagues.

2012Debuts as Felicity Smoak in Arrow's third episode, initially a guest role.
2013Promoted to series regular for season 2.
2015Appears in the drama Brooklyn.
2018Stars in the play Reborning in Vancouver; Funny Story premieres at Sundance.
2019Exit from Arrow announced before the final season; brings Reborning to New York off-Broadway.
2020Returns for Arrow's series finale.
2024Plays the title role in the Western Calamity Jane, opposite Stephen Amell.
2025Queen of the Ring, with Rickards as wrestler Mildred Burke, opens in U.S. theaters in March.
2026Announces her engagement in January; marries Riley Howlett in July.

04Theater Westerns and a Wrestling Legend

Back to the stage

The theater plan wasn’t just talk. In 2018, while still on Arrow, Rickards starred in Zayd Dohrn’s play Reborning in Vancouver, a performance that drew strong reviews. In 2019 she took the same play to New York for an off-Broadway run, reported at the time by Playbill. For an actress who could easily have lined up another network series, choosing a small, intense stage drama said a lot about her priorities.

Riding into Deadwood

Her screen return came in an unexpected genre: the Western. In Calamity Jane (2024), directed by Terry Miles, Rickards played the title role, a fictionalized Martha Jane Canary chasing the men behind Wild Bill Hickok’s murder. The film also reunited her with her old Arrow partner Stephen Amell, a casting detail that got plenty of fan attention when it was released in February 2024.

Becoming Mildred Burke

The biggest swing of her post-Arrow career is Queen of the Ring, written and directed by Ash Avildsen and based on Jeff Leen’s book about Mildred Burke. Burke, a single mother, broke into professional wrestling in the 1930s, when women’s wrestling was banned across much of the United States, and went on to become a champion and, as the film bills her, the first million-dollar female athlete.

Rickards led an ensemble that included Josh Lucas, Walton Goggins, Francesca Eastwood, Deborah Ann Woll, and Tyler Posey. According to UPI and other coverage, she trained for roughly three months before filming and kept going throughout the ten-week shoot, dropping running and kickboxing to focus on building muscle. She did the press rounds when the film opened in U.S. theaters on March 7, 2025, including an interview with NPR about Burke’s legacy. It was the most visible lead role she’d had since Felicity, and a physical transformation that surprised a lot of her old fans.

Listings also credit her with a supporting part in the 2025 family adventure Autumn and the Black Jaguar, directed by Gilles de Maistre.

05What She Is Doing Now

The convention circuit and an Arrow reunion

In 2026, Rickards has been a regular face at fan conventions. Event listings put her at shows including Kansas City, Albuquerque, Nashville, and Fan Expo Vancouver early in the year, and at Oz Comic-Con in Sydney and Brisbane in September. The headline appearance was C2E2 in Chicago in late March, where she joined former co-stars Stephen Amell and David Ramsey for what Popverse described as a proper Arrow reunion, with photo ops, autographs, and a panel.

Would she play Felicity again?

It’s the question fans ask at every panel. Her answer, given to TVLine in 2025, was a qualified “probably” for a TV movie or limited revival, but on her own terms.

I love Felicity [so] I’m not doing it for Arrow or really the fans. I’d be doing it for Felicity. — Emily Bett Rickards, TVLine interview, 2025

She has said she’d want to give the character “her flowers,” a chance to stand up for herself in ways she felt the later seasons didn’t allow. No revival has been announced, so treat this as openness rather than a plan.

Engaged, then married

The biggest news of her year has been personal. On January 1, 2026, Rickards announced on Instagram that she was engaged to Riley Howlett, sharing that she had done the proposing herself on a trip to Tofino, British Columbia, in March 2025, with the couple’s dog, Oph, alongside. She called it her favorite moment of 2025 and said Tofino was where the two had fallen in love.

The wedding followed that summer. A representative for Rickards confirmed to People in mid-July 2026 that the couple had married in an outdoor ceremony with close friends and family. Coverage noted the relaxed, personal feel of the day, which fits the low-key way she has handled her private life all along.

06Summary

Emily Bett Rickards didn’t disappear after Arrow; she just stopped doing the thing everyone expected. She traded a network schedule for the stage, then came back to the screen in roles most TV stars wouldn’t touch: a gritty Western and a physically demanding wrestling biopic. Now she’s meeting fans on the convention circuit and starting married life.

Emily Bett Rickards in 2026: Quick Facts

Played Felicity Smoak on Arrow from 2012 until the 2020 series finale.
Chose to leave before the final season, citing the character's arc and a wish to focus on theater.
Starred in Reborning in Vancouver (2018) and off-Broadway (2019).
Led the revenge Western Calamity Jane (2024) opposite Stephen Amell.
Played wrestling pioneer Mildred Burke in Queen of the Ring, released in U.S. theaters in March 2025.
Reunited with Amell and David Ramsey at C2E2 in Chicago in March 2026.
Married Riley Howlett in July 2026 after proposing in Tofino in 2025.

Felicity may have been the role that made her, but Rickards has spent the years since proving she isn’t limited to it. If a revival ever happens, she’s made it clear she’d come back for the character, not for the nostalgia. Until then, she seems perfectly happy doing things her own way.