Why 'Supergirl' star Milly Alcock feels right as 'unconventional' hero

Brian Truitt, USA TODAYThu, June 25, 2026 at 12:02 PM UTC

0

A Supergirl walked into a bar, and Milly Alcock came alive.

Early on in the DC superhero space adventure “Supergirl” (in theaters June 26), Kara Zor-El (Alcock) stops at a cosmic tavern for her 23rd birthday and showcases all different facets of the title character in one drunken moment: There’s loneliness, pain and self-destruction in her binge drinking, humor that comes in her wild and free dancing, and irreverence in hanging with her beloved super-pup Krypto.

But when danger walks in courtesy of a very large and formidable alien, Kara walks out and throws hands at the dude.

In that scene, Alcock “was so vulnerable and accessible,” says “Supergirl” director Craig Gillespie. “I was like, ‘We have a star here.’”

Alcock, 26, first introduced this version of Supergirl in the rebooted DC universe last summer in “Superman,” as an inebriated Kara burst into the Fortress of Solitude and surprised her strait-laced cousin Clark Kent, aka Superman (David Corenswet). The Australian actress’ new solo movie catches up with Supergirl on a journey of self-discovery, helping a vengeful young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) – as well as a poisoned Krypto – while also still coming to grips with the deaths of her parents and her entire planet of Krypton.

“She has had influence from her family, but also influence in having to kind of reassimilate onto Earth, through Clark’s definition of what it means to be good,” Alcock says of Kara. “This film really explores the different avenues in which we all can be good and how you can be a hero along the way in your own kind of way.”

Interspersed with the adventure – and quite a few brawls with bad guys – are flashbacks to Kara’s time on Krypton and adopting Krypto. While Clark was sent to Earth as a baby before Krypton blew up, Kara and her parents were able to escape with others, although that’s only a temporary avoidance of their people’s fate. Kara’s dad (David Krumholtz) sends her to Earth before it’s too late to reunite with her grown-up cousin, but their upbringings have led to different personalities.

The flashbacks show “where this grief and where this armor is coming from,” Gillespie says. “Once you see that, you're completely invested. And you understand her lack of being able to connect, the humor that she's using as armor, and the abrasiveness that she can have in certain moments. She's protecting herself.”

Kara isn’t the only superhero with a tragic origin story – but unlike, say, that guy who dresses up as a bat and fights crime after the deaths of his mom and dad, Kara hits up a dive bar and plays with her dog to cope.

Advertisement

“She isn't this complete, unattainable ideal. She's a reflection of who we are,” Alcock says. “We all are really beautifully flawed, so I do think that there is a lot of relatability in the way that she has dealt with trauma.”

As a comic book do-gooder, “she's almost an antihero,” Gillespie says of Supergirl. “She doesn't want to be a superhero. It's been pushed upon her, and she's running away from it when we meet her. She's shirking all of this responsibility, and to me, that makes her incredibly fascinating.”

But Kara’s heart is in the right place. Her belief system goes back to something her mom (Emily Beecham) tells her: “You don’t have to be nice, but you have to be good.”

Alcock loves how “Supergirl” “explores the nuance within our moral compass, and the way in which we all exist within a gray area,” she says. “The good people do bad things; the bad people do good things. But at the end of the day, it's what we feel is right, even if sometimes it's done in kind of an unconventional way."

“Audiences are longing for a really refreshing new set of ideals and identities associated with who is allowed to be a hero. Flawless people, we've seen that countless times of who can be heroes. But I think that really flawed and diverse group of people is something that could be more exciting for new audiences to see on screen.”

Alcock feels closer to Kara than to her other roles, such as the dragon-riding young princess of “House of the Dragon” or the budding socialite of “Sirens.”

“All the people that I've had the privilege to play, I’ve needed to play them,” Alcock says. "[Kara is] the most similar to who I am, for better or for worse. I really needed to play her to believe in myself and believe that I was capable."

“I think ultimately, everybody who you play is a part of you. It's you in some really beautiful facet," she says, before jokingly adding, "I just can't fly."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Supergirl' star Milly Alcock on playing 'flawed' DC superhero Kara

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”