@Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Supergirl : The further adventures of Supergirl.

Director : Craig Gillespie

Producer : James Gunn, Peter Safran

Screenwriter : Ana Nogueira

Distributor : Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co : DC Entertainment, DC Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery

Genre : Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Fantasy

Original Language :English

Release Date (Theaters) : Jun 26, 2025, Wide

©Courtesy of Warner Brothers

Q&A with James Gunn, Star Milly Alcock and Director Craig Gillespie

James Gunn: Craig, what did excite you and what challenges did you face, making such an iconic superhero come to life again on the big screen?

Craig Gillespie: When I heard that James Gunn and Peter Safran were taking over DC, I was immediately interested because I love James’ work. I love his style. Then Anna Nogueira’s script arrived, and it was so good that it was the first comic book movie script I could understand. I loved the tone and knew what to do with it. Millie had already been cast in the role, so I did my research on her and watched an Australian series she starred in. I was already familiar with House of the Dragon. I couldn’t have been more excited about her as the lead. Supergirl is a perfect combination of the script, Millie, James, and Peter, who oversaw everything. The story deals with some very dark and difficult aspects for the character, and I thought they would focus on that. Millie was perfect for the role, with her vulnerability and humor. All of these characteristics made me want to throw myself into the project and prove my worth.

James Gunn: Can you describe the character of Supergirl, especially in comparison to Superman? She seems to be more cynical and a little bit more punk style than previous iterations. 

Milly Alcock: More than a little bit! Compared to Superman, Supergirl has a completely different background. She grew up on a dying planet. Everyone she knew and loved died. This has made her very cynical; she doesn’t trust many people. She has put up a big wall and is very skeptical of people. Clark is the opposite: he is trusting and expects the best from people. He has had a very sheltered life and also pretends. Kara never pretends. If something is not right for her, you can tell right away. She does not put on a facade, which was quite challenging to play. 

James Gunn: How was putting on the costume for the first time and stepping into the set as Supergirl? 

Milly Alcock: Well, when I put the suit on for the first time I was Superman set! Chantal Nong Vo, our lovely producer, looked at me and she just started crying. It was really, she did the silent sob and it was sweet because at that moment I was like: “Okay, I have to really show up for these people because, not only for myself but for all of the people who’ve spent years of their life trying to get this film up.” What it will mean to other young girls and other young women coming to see this movie, because she’s so flawed and we need a flawed hero. 

James Gunn: What did Millie bring to this role that you loved? 

Craig Gillespie: She’s a rebellious spirit. This character’s got a lot of armor, and she uses her humor and her cynicism to protect herself. There’s a real punk quality to it. Milly just embraced all of it. It’s so effortless for her to dive into that role and do it with a certain sense of compassion underneath. You can feel the vulnerability, you can feel what she’s struggling with, but she still has a toughness to her. It’s a tricky dance, to find an actor that can do that dance of being in and out of the humor, but being grounded and feeling like she’s coming from an emotional place. Milly does that beautifully. 

James Gunn: Who’s Kara? What aspect of Kara’s inner world resonated with you the most? And how did you channel that into your performance? 

Milly Alcock: Kara doesn’t want to be a heroine. There’s a link to my personal experience as an actress: when you have to take on a certain role and meet certain external expectations, sometimes you feel like you don’t deserve it. I identified with that. She has to be the heroine of her own story. Many of us struggle to do that, to feel up to the task. 

James Gunn: What attracted you to Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow, and to this version of Kara Zor-El as the next strong female lead in a story that blends vengeance, hope, and cosmic scale?

Craig Gillespie: First of all, the graphic novel by Tom King and Bilquis Evely is extraordinary. Secondly, Anna Nogueira’s screenplay. Her adaptation was done excellently. I read the first two scenes of the film, and what happens takes the entire film to its extreme consequences. It encapsulates the entire film. It won me over immediately. Being under the supervision of James and Peter, I knew they would accept it. James doesn’t shy away from tones like this, the script tackles difficult and sensitive issues for Kara and the audience, it requires intense soul-searching and has many surprises in store. I was very excited that we wouldn’t have to shy away from this, but could tackle it from an acting perspective, from a character perspective, namely Kara’s ambiguity and the dark sides of her life. It’s exciting to see how it all comes together.

James Gunn: What research did you do to the character before you brought her to screen? 

Milly Alcock: Zero. I’m kidding. I’m absolutely kidding. I leaned a lot on Tom King’s book because it felt like that was the closest version to this character that we were telling. I read that book a lot. I did a lot of physical training, too. 

James Gunn: What do you think your version of Supergirl represents for a new generation of girls and women who love superheroes and want to see themselves represented on screen? 

Milly Alcock: What Supergirl represents for young women is that you can have flaws, you don’t have to be perfect to achieve inner resolution. Women are imposed with this narrative that you have to be perfect in every aspect of your life. Kara is someone who accepts her flaws in a wonderful way. She’s really special.

James Gunn: That’s what struck me in both the comic book and the script. Superheroines are much more perfect than superheroes: Tony Stark and Star Lord are real disasters. That’s not always the case with super heroines. Kara isn’t perfect, she’s a real disaster, but she still has a beautiful soul.

James Gunn: What defines Supergirl as a unique hero? 

Craig Gillespie: The fact that she’s an anti-hero. She doesn’t want the role. When we meet her, she’s running away from it and in her own space. Kara gets dragged very reluctantly into the world of having to be a superhero. The way she handles that, that she deals with it, and the way that she finds herself through that story is really fascinating and it’s incomplete, which i love as well.

James Gunn: What was that like to shoot all the action and the stunts? Because there were a lot of big ones: your movies have had some big action stunts, but this one was something different… 

Craig Gillespie: It was amazing. We had about six or seven weeks, it was just all stunts. It was a lot to do. My stunt coordinator at one point said: “We’re doing all of this cable work, we have eight miles of cable right now on the stage! I’ve never had it that much.” It was really exciting, there was always a little difference whether she had her full power, or she had no power, like when she’s on a red planet. It is fun watching the movie because she’s going in and out of these planets with red planets and yellow planets and Superman’s powers, girls’ powers don’t work on a red planet. They’re just ordinary human beings. And that’s where she’s comfortable. And she’ll get drunk there. Also where she is in the story emotionally  dictated a lot of how these fight sequences went. So if she was in a very angry place, it was going to be much more like a phonetic camera, messy, aggressive camera work. If she was feeling in the zone, so to speak, the camera work would get more fluid. Figuring out where we were in the story and how that reinforced her emotionally with the fight sequences was really fun. 

James Gunn: What’s the best part about being Supergirl? 

Milly Halcock: They’ll find out when they finish watching the film at the very end. I don’t think she thinks there’s a best part. She might like flying. I interpreted the question as like her having to step up into the role of being here. She doesn’t want to be a hero until the end of the movie, then she’s like: “I have to be Supergirl.”

James Gunn: What was the conversation with Anna Nogueira when deciding what to keep the graphic novel as it is and what to adapt to make the story feel fresh on the screen? 

Craig Gillespie: I very deliberately read Anna’s script before I read the comic book, because I wanted to see how that would hold up. I didn’t know anything about the Supergirl law. I was a perfect audience for it because any questions that I had, I could ask. She did an amazing job working that narrative, it was quite clear to me what was going on. We keep mentioning the Tom King book, but she really took it to a different place. It’s different. 

James Gunn: It’s also fair to point out Bilquis Evely, who did all the art for the Tom King book, which is also a big inspiration and is equally as important as King is to that book. 

James Gunn: What will this version of Supergirls show that we haven’t seen in previous series or films?

Craig Gillespie: It’s a very flawed character as a superhero. It’s what it did for me when I got the script, because I wasn’t actively hunting to do a superhero film. I found in my work here has been this consistency of outsiders and underdogs as leads. Supergirl has all of that. She doesn’t want to take on the role. She’s got a lot of demons that she’s dealing with. From a character standpoint I really related to it, I felt like I could do a lot with that. Milly is such a brilliant range in terms of tone like between humor and drama. 

James Gunn: What do you think fans of Superman, the 2025 movie which was fantastic, will be most surprised about with this film?

Milly Alcock: It’s just a completely different movie. It’s completely different.

Craig Gillespie: When we met, I immediately asked James: “How much do I have to stick to Superman in the world we’re dealing with?” And he replied: “You have to leave your mark. Know your style and your vision.” It was incredibly exciting, and I’m very grateful to him for that. It was very important for the tone of the script that I was able to fully immerse myself and embrace it. We can announce it: the entire movie is set in space. So it’s a very different world from Superman, for starters. In a sense, we started from scratch. We created a whole new universe.

James Gunn:  Who would win in an arm wrestling match between Kara and Clark? 

Milly Halcock: Kara would. Because Clark would let her win. I feel like she’d outsmart him. Yeah, she would win. She’d fake him out. There would be some cheating involved, but I think she’d win. You know, healthy cheating. 

James Gunn: Is Crypto returning and can we expect him to be a good dog?

Craig Gillespie: You’ll see pretty quickly his returning. He’s returning. I don’t think he knows what good is, he just exists in his own headspace. He’s a terrible dog. He continues to be a terrible dog. The difference is Kara loves him as a terrible dog, whereas he gets on Clark’s nerves. 

James Gunn: Craig, what did excite you and what challenges that you faced making such an iconic superhero come to life back on the big screen? 

Craig Gillespie: It’s just a story and working to tell the most interesting version of this journey. Milly’s performance, what she gets to work with,being able to see this incredibly flawed character and her struggle with, owning this role, that was the most exciting part of it.

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