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[spoiler]
After an extensive search, CBS has cast its Supergirl. The network has signed Glee actress Melissa Benoist in the starring role of Kara Zor-El in its series version of the classic comic-book story.
Benoist played Marley Rose in seasons four and five of Fox’s Glee and was also in the 2014 indie film Whiplash. The show’s official description: “Born on the planet Krypton, Kara Zor-El escaped amid its destruction years ago. Since arriving on Earth, she’s been hiding the powers she shares with her famous cousin. But now at age 24, she decides to embrace her superhuman abilities and be the hero she was always meant to be.”
Supergirl is the first super-hero show on CBS in 25 years (since 1990’s short-lived The Flash) and follows up on sister-network building its audience with DC heroes like on Arrow. At the TCA press tour earlier this month, CBS entertainment chairman Nina Tassler told critics their version of Supergirl will be a crime procedural (of course). “The beauty of it is now with shows like Good Wife and Madam Secretary, you can have serialized story elements woven into a case of the week,” Tassler said. “She’s a crime solver, so she’s going to have to solve a crime. She’s going to get a bad guy.”
Tassler further described the CBS version of the DC Comics icon as “a very strong, independent young woman. She’s coming into her own. She’s dealing with family issues. She’s dealing with work issues. It’s a female empowerment story. If you look at the strong female characters we have on the air, it really is resonant of that … We’re big feminists. It’s her intellect, it’s her skill, it’s her smarts. It’s all of those elements. It’s not just her strength, which she does have.”
Tassler also emphasized the actress has to carry the series. “She’s got to be an every woman,” she said. “She’s got to be specific. She’s got to be a terrific actor … it’s looking for someone who embodies both the freshness and the exuberance of being a young woman in today’s challenging climate and being someone who can carry this kind of series on her shoulders. It’s a big, big show.”
Benoist is far from the first actress to don Supergirl’s red cape. Helen Slater portrayed the heroine in the 1984 eponymous film, while Laura Vandervoort suited up on The CW’s Smallville. Even geek goddess Summer Glau (Dollhouse, Firefly) voiced Kara in the direct-to-video animated film Superman/Batman: Apocalypse.
http://insidetv.ew.com/2015/01/22/super ... a-benoist/From the same team as Arrow/The Flash.
She was also on The Good Wife and Homeland -
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2552034/Desperate Housewives and True Blood actor Mehcad Brooks has been cast as Jimmy Olsen in the upcoming Supergirl TV series from CBS.
The Supergirl TV series version of Jimmy Olsen is described asa smart, worldly photographer for CatCo, the media company where Kara works.
Olsen has recently been living and working in National City, though the reason is still a secret.
http://comicbook.com/2015/01/29/mehcad- ... supergirl/Ally McBeal and Brothers & Sisters star Calista Flockhart is returning to network television with a co-starring role opposite Melissa Benoist in the CBS pilot Supergirl. She will play Kara’s boss Cat Grant in the project, reuniting with Brothers & Sisters executive producer Greg Berlanti.
Kara works as as assistant to Grant, a self-made media magnate and founder of CatCo who started her career as a reporter and has built her company into a global powerhouse.
http://deadline.com/2015/02/calista-flo ... 201379787/Nashville standout Laura Benanti has been cast in a key recurring role in the CBS pilot Supergirl. She will play Alura Zor-El, the birth mother of Kara
http://deadline.com/2015/02/laura-benan ... 201377441/Casting details -
For Kara Zor-El aka Kara Danvers, the show is eyeing Caucasian females, age 22 to 26, to play 24. As the series’ mythology goes, Kara at age 12 was sent from her dying home planet of Krypton to Earth, where she was taken in by the Danvers, a foster family who taught her to be careful with her extraordinary powers. After repressing said skills for more than a decade, Kara is forced to bust out her super moves in public during an unexpected disaster. Energized by her heroism for the first time in her life, she begins embracing her abilities in the name of helping the people of her city, earning herself a super moniker along the way.
The other lead role currently being cast is that of 26-year-old Alexandra “Alex” Danvers, Kara’s gorgeous, brilliant, science-minded foster sister. Growing up, Alex was partly jealous of her sibling yet also fascinated by her abilities, prompting Alex to learn as much as she could about alien anthropology, sociology and culture. Today, Alex works for a secret government organization and, alongside her heroic sis, will face many challenges, both mundane and super.
CAT GRANT | The project is eyeing females in their 40s, open ethnicity, to play the founder of CatCo, a media conglomerate that Cat built from the ground up. Kara (Supergirl’s mild-mannered alter ego) will work as a personal assistant to Cat, who is described as “J.Lo by way of Anna Wintour.”
JAMES OLSEN | In his late 20s/early 30s, open ethnicity, James is a smart, worldly and (duh) attractive photographer for CatCo. Though an alpha male, his salt-of-the-earth nature elicits a huge ol’ crush from Kara.
WINSLOW ‘WYNN’ SCHOTT | This twentysomething tech whiz/Comic-Con stalwart toils for CatCo as a programmer, unaware of his own (toying?) potential. Unware of her secret, he carries a torch for Kara, whom he lives next door to.
HANK HENSHAW | As an upstart CIA agent, Hank grew obsessed with intergalactic intel. Now in his 40s and lording over the DEO (Department of Extra-Normal Operations), he is on high alert when Supergirl reveals herself, worried that her otherworldly abilities pose a threat to humankind.
Chyler Leigh & David Harewood Cast In ‘Supergirl’ Pilot
Leigh plays Alexandra “Alex” Danvers, Kara’s confident foster sister. Fascinated by Kara’s powers from a young age, Alex developed a lifelong obsession with science which inspired her to become a doctor.
Harewood plays Hank Henshaw, a onetime CIA agent who now runs the Department of Extra-Normal Operations, which tracks extraterrestrial threats on the planet Earth. In the DC Comics universe, Henshaw is a villain who eventually becomes Cyborg Superman.
http://deadline.com/2015/02/chyler-leig ... 201382262/Supergirl Casts the Heroic Helen Slater and Dean Cain in Top-Secret RolesHow’s this for super-meta casting: Helen Slater and Dean Cain have landed guest-starring roles on CBS’s Supergirl, TVLine has learned.
Slater, of course, played Kara on the big screen in 1984’s Supergirl, while Cain starred as the Man of Steel in ABC’s Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. And both guest-starred on the WB/CW Superman drama Smallville, Slater in the role of Clark/Kal-El’s Krypton mom Lara, and Cain as the immortal Dr. Curtis Knox.
Details on who the pair will be playing in the pilot are being kept under lock and key
http://tvline.com/2015/02/27/supergirl- ... ries-cast/From a while ago -