John Barrowman Talks ‘Surreal’ MBE Royal Honor & What’s Next On ‘Arrow’

John Barrowman is back in Canada after being honored in the UK earlier this week with an MBE – Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

“It was totally awesome,” the “Arrow” star said about the honor, after Warner Bros. flew AccessHollywood.com up to The CW show’s set where they made us their guest.

On Tuesday, John, his mother, father and husband, Scott Gill, were in London as he accepted the honor presented to him by Princess Anne.

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“It was kind of surreal,” John told TV reporters in Vancouver on Friday. “I do a lot of charity work in the UK for numerous charities and Princess Anne is the patron of a couple of them that I’m involved in, as is the Queen, and I didn’t even know I was going to be getting – that’s something you expect to get when you’re like 70, right? And retired and walking with a zimmer frame [Editor’s Note: A walker]. And, for me, I was just overwhelmed. But yeah, it was great. My mom and dad, my husband Scott — I took all of them and we spent a morning and a mid-afternoon at the palace.”

John, who was born in Scotland, wore a kilt as he accepted the honor.

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“I have four different kilts and that one is the Stewart tartan,” John explained. “It’s one of the main clans of Scotland. It’s not a family tartan, I just like the color and that’s why I wore it.”

(John Barrowman with his MBE — Getty Images)

On Wednesday night, John made his television return to The CW’s “Arrow.” He was shown briefly in a scene where his character, Malcolm Meryln, was observing his daughter, Thea Queen, as she practiced martial arts.

Asked by a reporter on the set visit about how Malcolm feels about his daughter’s training progress, John said his character has an interesting way of dealing with Thea that is different from how he has dealt with others, previously.

“He had money and power to manipulate people and the one thing that he was never able to grasp was that – because he lost his wife, she was emotionally connected to changing the city; he lost Tommy, who was emotionally connected to Laurel… he lost Moira because Moira emotionally connected to her children and she sacrificed herself, so Malcolm has never been able to emotionally get to somebody, so this is, I think, his quest to emotionally manipulate people now rather than – he still uses physicality, but it’s a new twist in the way that i’m liking what  they’re doing,” John said.

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“Arrow” continues Wednesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

— Jolie Lash