The CW’s Batwoman pilot has found its latest star.
According to a new report from The Wrap, Dougray Scott has been cast as Colonel Jacob Kane, the father of Kate Kane/Batwoman (Ruby Rose). The elder Kane is a former military colonel with a chip on his shoulder for Batman. Now commanding Gotham’s private security firm The Crows, Kane has made it his mission to protect his city better than the Dark Knight ever could. But it’s only a matter of time before his unwavering disdain for vigilantes puts him at odds with Gotham’s new caped crusader.
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This description puts a bit of a twist on Colonel Kane’s comic origins, as he largely is depicted as an ally of his daughter’s superhero efforts. To an extent, the comic iteration of Colonel Kane served as Kate’s “guy in the chair”, providing technical knowledge and other communications to his daughter while she’s out in the field. He did briefly command an organization called The Colony later on in Detective Comics, which sounds somewhat similar to what we already know about The Crows.
Scott is known for his roles in Mission: Impossible II, Fear the Walking Dead, My Week with Marilyn, and Hemlock Grove. This isn’t his first time toeing with the comic book adaptation world, as he was originally chosen to play Wolverine in X-Men, but passed on the role due to schedule conflicts with Mission: Impossible II.
Batwoman will follow Kate, an openly-lesbian crime fighter who aims to keep Gotham safe. The cast also includes Meagan Tandy as Sophie Moore, Camrus Johnson as Luke Fox, and Nicole Kang as Mary Hamilton. Rachel Skarsten Rose’s portrayal of the character was first introduced in last December’s “Elseworlds” crossover event, and is expected to return in this year’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover.
“I get to be Batwoman,” Rose said when she was first cast in the role. “I feel like the reason I kept getting so emotional was because growing up watching TV I never saw someone on TV that I could identify with, let alone a superhero. I’ve always had this saying, well not me, Oscar Wilde, which is ‘be yourself because everyone else is taken’ and so I always lived by that motto and the second motto when I came into the industry was ‘be the person that you needed when you were younger’ and I feel like one motto sort of led me to the other and I just kept crying about it.”
While the pilot has yet to officially begin filming yet, The CW president Mark Pedowitz has expressed confidence that it will ultimately get picked up to series.
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