Batwoman Cast and Crew on Going Back to Tell Kate’s Origin Story

During last fall’s “Elseworlds” crossover fans of The CW‘s Arrowverse were introduced to Kate Kane/Batwoman, but when the Batwoman series debuts this fall on the network it will introduce viewers to Kate at the beginning of her time as the heroine. It’s a move that gives cast, crew, and even fans an interesting opportunity to not go into the story cold and it’s something that executive producer Sarah Schechter and series star Ruby Rose had a chance to address during Sunday’s Television Critics Association press tour.

Introducing a character and then going back to reintroduce them in their own series is something the Arrowverse has done before. Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) was introduced in Arrow‘s season two episode “The Scientist” before getting his own show on the network. For Schechter, it’s something she wishes that they could do with every show.

“It’s actually really fun,” she said. “I kind of wish we could do it on every show because you get to kind of just be with the character and not have to have all of the explanation and introduce the world and you really just get, sort of, a flavor of who they are. Then you can kind of go back in and fill it. I wish we could just honestly, it’s a great way to do it because it’s less pressure than ‘Here’s the world. Here’s all the people. We are going to tell you everything you need to know in 42 minutes and go.’”

“So it was actually a great advantage to be able to do that, I think, in this show because then it also meant, when we did the pilot, we could really because I think this cast is incredible and it was fun to be able to spend time with everyone,” Schechter continued. “And I think, if we hadn’t known Kate a little bit, it would be harder to have the bandwidth to do that.”

For Rose, though, jumping into a character who was already established as a hero in her first appearance was a bit more of a challenge.

“I think it was easier for everyone else and quite difficult for myself,” Rose admitted. “I definitely went in with very little information aside from what I read in the comics. We had an idea of, kind of, where the series was going to go and if it was going to go and if we did a pilot. There were a ton of question marks. So I just had to, kind of, shut off the noise and go with what I knew and sort of play. But when we got to the pilot, I was very thankful to fill in all the blanks and all of the questions that I had.”

Batwoman will premiere Sunday, October 6th at 8/7c on The CW.

Additional reporting by Scott Huver.