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Kara Zor-El is not like her cousin Kal. That was obvious in the last scene of James Gunn’s Superman earlier this year, which concluded with Milly Alcock’s inebriated cousin crashing into the Fortress of Solitude and shouting “what the hell, dude?” But even after that memorable entrance, the differences between the characters are taking on a whole new buzzy dimension in our first teaser trailer for the second movie in this cinematic DC Universe: Supergirl.
Propulsively scored to the spiky sounds of Blondie’s “Call Me,” Alcock’s Supergirl now visually takes after that iconic punk band’s front-woman, Debbie Harry, looking more at home in a brown trench coat and sunglasses that mask a hangover than the red cape and boots we’re accustomed to. She also is clearly not going to be spending a lot of time on the shimmering Earth of James Gunn’s Superman. Director Craig Gillespie’s spinoff instead favors a distant galaxy where the suns glow red, Kara’s glass runneths full… and a whole different kind of adventure is about to occur.
But then, that is the appeal of adapting Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s seminal 2021 character study about Kara that is regularly cited as one of the best graphic novels of this decade. Indeed, when we caught up with Gunn at a Supergirl press event in New York City, he told us the radical contrast between this version of Kara and Kal was part of the appeal.
“It’s bittersweet,” Gunn says of Woman of Tomorrow. “I think that’s one of the things that attracted me to the graphic novel. It’s a Supergirl who is so different from Superman and who is haunted. The luxury that Superman has is he was raised by really wonderful parents who loved him from the time he was an infant, so his background is so different. To be able to see somebody else who is good-hearted, as Kara is, but her background is extremely different from his—to see the contrast between those two is one of the things that interested me in making this movie.”
What Separates Kara and Clark
Those differences also inform how Alcock approaches the character and a story that she describes as dark and gritty.
“She’s like an unapologetic mess,” Alcock tells us while considering the differences between Kara and Kal. “She doesn’t want to be a hero, and I really admire that about her. I think Clark puts on a mask in his everyday life, and Kara won’t submit to that. I find that really admirable.”
That steely refusal to submit to familial or social expectations is perhaps why Gunn first considered Alcock for the role. As he revealed to the whole press during the event, he began considering adapting King and Evely’s story as far back as 2022 when he and longtime collaborator Peter Safran were initially approached to run DC Studios.
“It was not a done deal,” Gunn recalls, “but, still, that didn’t stop us from fantasizing about how we would do it, what would the projects be, and how it would take place.” And when it came to imagining a big screen version of this specific Supergirl story, Gunn even had an idea in mind while catching up on some quality HBO programming.
“I said on the phone, ‘You know who would be great as Supergirl? That little girl from House of the Dragon. That little girl, that little tiny kid, that little miniature human being from House of the Dragon, I think she really has something special.” (The producer might have been laying the description on thick since Alcock was humorously wincing beside him during the story.)
It would ultimately be more than a year before Alcock auditioned for the role, but looking back on it now, she tells us her experience of playing Rhaenyra Targaryen—the “Realm’s Delight” until she demanded her birthright—prepared her for stepping into the world of Supergirl.
“It was definitely a good warm up act to the world that this film exists in,” says Alcock. “I’m grateful for that experience.”
As judged by the trailer, the world will also have a radically different vibe and aesthetic from Superman. Director Gillespie told the room that the appeal of taking the job was Gunn’s DC allowed him to treat the material as tonally different as one comic book or graphic novel might depart from another. And while speaking with us, he confides he was attracted to the True Grit and The Searchers undertones in the graphic novel about a traumatized antihero helping a younger innocent go on a quest through dangerous terrain.
“We touch a little bit on the Western theme in the film, which is really fun at certain points,” Gillespie says. “But it’s also a road movie as well. That’s the other thing I leaned into, those two-hander road films.”
While the first trailer does not show all the movie’s cards, Supergirl is expected to be the story of both Kara and a young woman named Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a daughter who procures (guilts?) Supergirl’s services in tracking down her father’s murderer. Gillespie reveals: “[Kara’s] got so much baggage, so much she’s dealing with in terms of trauma, and it’s reflective in her personality all the way through the film. But it’s done in a very fun way as well and being able to lean into that was so much fun.”
Supergirl’s Playlist
Anyone familiar with Gillespie’s projects to date—Cruella, Pam & Tommy, or the movie Gunn tells us was his favorite film of 2017, I, Tonya—knows how that fun can manifest itself in music and sound. Supergirl will be no different.
“Honestly, we do have scores in this, but it all comes back to songs for me, and some specific songs,” Gillespie teases. “Obviously you heard Blondie in [the trailer]. She has really a punk attitude to her, and the music to me reflects that. Finding those songs that capture where she is emotionally in the film was really exciting.”
For her part, Alcock loved wearing a vintage Blondie T-shirt for much of Supergirl, which seems to reflect the headphones Kara often has plugged in during the new movie. It might even cause one to wonder what would be Kara’s most played song on a Spotify Unwrapped…
“That’s such a good question!” Alcock laughs. “The B-52s,” she adds in reference to the 1980s band’s wanderlust song, “Roam.”
Gillespie, meanwhile, has a few answers stored up, which isn’t surprising considering he is still cutting the film.
“It runs the gamut,” the director muses about Kara and Supergirl’s soundtracks. “I think it would go from Black Sabbath to Blondie. We just put in this very indie band she’s listening to at one point, SKORTS [and the song “Bodies”]. It’s all over the map.”
It is, in other words, probably a lot more punk rock than Clark Kent and his affinity for the Mighty Crabjoys.
Supergirl soars into theaters on June 26.
The post Supergirl: Milly Alcock Explains ‘Clark Kent Puts on a Mask, Kara Won’t’ appeared first on Den of Geek.
