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Supergirl and star Milly Alcock are getting support from someone who knows all about the pressure of playing the titular superhero on the big screen.
Helen Slater was just 18 when her successful audition led to her acting debut as Kara Zor-El, cousin of Superman, for the original 1984 movie Supergirl. Director Craig Gillespie’s new Warner Bros. film of the same name has been the subject of debate after launching to $37 million domestically over the weekend, leading DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran to admit that the opening sum did not meet expectations.
“I loved the new Supergirl film,” Slater tells The Hollywood Reporter. “I thought Milly Alcock was astonishing — fierce, strong and great comic timing!”
After landing the role in the 1980s, Slater underwent a rigorous training regimen that spanned roughly four months and led her to gain 15 pounds of muscle through trampolining, fencing, horseback riding and other exercises. “I was very scrawny when I got the part,” she recalls. “The trampolining was wild. I learned to do backflips on the trampoline, and then there’s an aerial ballet in the Supergirl film, which we practiced quite a lot.”
