{"id":880968,"date":"2025-12-27T00:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-27T06:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/27\/the-people-behind-supergirl-are-ready-to-share-their-imperfect-hero\/"},"modified":"2025-12-27T00:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-27T06:21:07","slug":"the-people-behind-supergirl-are-ready-to-share-their-imperfect-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/27\/the-people-behind-supergirl-are-ready-to-share-their-imperfect-hero\/","title":{"rendered":"The People Behind \u2018Supergirl\u2019 Are Ready to Share Their Imperfect Hero"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a special press conference for Supergirl<\/a>,<\/em> invited media watched DC Studios head James Gunn<\/a>, director Craig Gillespie, and star Milly Alcock<\/a> discuss the trailer that dropped today<\/a>. The creative team behind the film broke down what they could talk about from the trailer and teased what to expect when Kara Zor-El\u2019s journey comes to the big screen in June.<\/p>\n

For Gillespie, who\u2019s known for films that tackle darkly comedic complex characters\u2014notably Cruella<\/em> and I, Tonya\u2014<\/em>knowing he\u2019d have the support to let Kara\u2019s raw story be told thanks to Gunn and Safran taking over DC Studios got him to come in for Supergirl.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI was very interested because I love James\u2019s work. I love the tone. I feel a kinship there with a sensibility with what I like to do and what James has done,\u201d he shared. \u201cAnd the idea that they were going to now take over the studio felt like a huge opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcock affirmed that sentiment. She was approached to audition thanks to her work as the young Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon<\/em>, which prepared her to join the party of two lone royal Kryptonian survivors. \u201cSupergirl, compared to Superman, she\u2019s had a completely different upbringing. She was brought up on a planet that was dying. Everyone that she\u2019s ever known and loved is dead,\u201d she shared. \u201cShe\u2019s got a very big wall up and she\u2019s very skeptical of people. And Clark is the opposite of that. He\u2019s very overtly trusting. He expects the good in people. He\u2019s had a very sheltered life, and he\u2019s also pretending. Kara never pretends. If she\u2019s not feeling well, you will know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kara\u2019s sense of agency\u2014and seeing people on set moved to tears by the sight of her in costume\u2014inspired Alcock to go all in. \u201cNot only for myself, but for all of the people who\u2019ve spent years of their [lives] trying to get this film up and made, and what it will mean to other young girls and other young women coming to see this movie,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause I think she\u2019s so flawed, and I think we really need a flawed hero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcock and Kara truly felt like the perfect combo for the filmmakers. Gillespie explained, \u201cThere\u2019s a real punk quality to it, and Milly just embraced all of it. It\u2019s so effortless for her to dive into that role and do it with a certain sense of compassion underneath, but you can feel the vulnerability; you can feel the fractures in what she\u2019s struggling with, but she still has a toughness to it. And it\u2019s a tricky dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The range really suited Ana Nogueira\u2019s take on Tom King\u2019s source material, Gillespie added. \u201cThe adaptation of that was just so beautifully done. And honestly, I read the first two scenes of the film and the extremes of what is happening\u2014it encompasses the whole movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Without giving too much away, he described how the weight on Kara\u2019s shoulders differs from her cousin Superman\u2019s motivations. \u201cThe script really went to some hard and difficult places for the character, for the audience, and really has a lot of soul-searching involved and surprises you with the dark places that it ends up landing in. And I was very excited that we wouldn\u2019t have to shy away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcock emphasized, \u201cI think that what Supergirl represents for young women, especially, is that you can be flawed,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t have to be perfect in order to come to some internal self-resolution. I think that we\u2019re kind of [thrust into] this narrative, especially women, that you have to be perfect in every aspect of your life. And I think that Kara is someone who so beautifully leans into her flaws. And I think that\u2019s really special.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gunn jumped in. \u201cThat\u2019s really what spoke to me, both in the book and in the script, is that a lot of times for some reason, our female superhero leads are just so much more perfect than our male [ones].\u201d<\/p>\n

In Supergirl<\/em>, Gunn said, we\u2019ll be \u201cseeing somebody who was just so imperfect and such a mess but just really a beautiful soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what really got him and DC Studios co-head Peter Safran to give it the green light: the chance to follow Kara\u2019s reluctant space odyssey because of \u201chow she chases not being heroic. It is fun watching the movie because she\u2019s going in and out of these planets with red planets and yellow planets. Superman\u2019s powers [and] Supergirl\u2019s powers don\u2019t work on a red planet. They\u2019re just ordinary human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gillespie posited, \u201cI think it\u2019s the fact that she\u2019s an antihero. What I loved in the story is she doesn\u2019t want the role. When we meet her, she\u2019s, in a very hard way, running away from it and in her own space. And she gets dragged very reluctantly into the world of having to be a superhero.\u201d<\/p>\n

The director shared how that influenced his vision of not only capturing Alcock\u2019s performance of Kara\u2019s emotional inner world, but also how it manifests through her physicality fighting. \u201cWhere she is in the story dictated a lot of how these fight sequences go. So if she\u2019s in a very angry place, it\u2019s going to be a much more frenetically messy, aggressive kind of camera work. If she\u2019s feeling in the zone, so to speak, the camera work gets more fluid.\u201d<\/p>\n

His work has led up to this, he said. \u201cThere\u2019s been this consistency of outsiders as leads that I\u2019m attracted to and underdogs, and Supergirl is all of that. And she doesn\u2019t want to take on the role. She\u2019s got a lot of demons that she\u2019s dealing with. So from a character standpoint, I really related to it. I think she\u2019s doing everything not to be Supergirl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alcock believes that Kara finds the reason to love being Supergirl<\/em> in the last act, and it\u2019s a journey she\u2019s excited to share with audiences: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want to be a hero until the end of the movie, and then she\u2019s like, \u2018I have to be this.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel<\/a>, Star Wars<\/a>, and Star Trek<\/a> releases, what\u2019s next for the DC Universe on film and TV<\/a>, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n

Sabina Graves
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a special press conference for Supergirl, invited media watched DC Studios head James Gunn, director Craig Gillespie, and star Milly Alcock discuss the trailer that dropped today. The creative team behind the film broke down what they could talk about from the trailer and teased what to expect when Kara Zor-El\u2019s journey comes to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":880969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1846,287],"tags":[6140,6149],"class_list":{"0":"post-880968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-behind","8":"category-people","9":"tag-behind","10":"tag-people"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}