Leslie Grace, who will play Batgirl in an upcoming feature film set for release on HBO Max, shared the heartwarming story of how she learned the news during a red carpet appearance last night. Variety tracked down the star at the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards, and asked her how she learned she would be playing Barbara Gordon in the adaptation. Like The Flash’s Sasha Calle, who will play Supergirl in the 2022 film, Grace learned that she was going to get the part while doing a video conference with the filmmakers under the pretense that it was just another readthrough.
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This may be the last time they can pull that, though. While Grace was blown away by the news, it sounds a little bit like she was already a tiny bit suspicious of the circumstances.
“It was an increidble moment,” Grace said. “When I mean incredible, I mean the textbook definition of, I could not believe it. My brain actually broke when I got the news. The directors actually called me, and the producers were on the line. They called me under the pretense, or had me hop on a Zoom link under the pretense that I was doing a final test — that this was just another step in the process. It was the middle of the day, and I was looking crazy, and they were like, ‘Get on the phone really fast; this could be a final test or some news or something.’ So I hop on, and I only see our two directors, Adil [El Arbi] and Bilall [Fallah], who are so sweet. They were like, ‘Yeah, we just want to do this final test,’ but at the bottom I can see that there are eight participants, and it’s recording, and I’m like, ‘Alright, I don’t know what this is.’ And then they broke it to me like, ‘We just want you to read this text; we’re going to send it to your email.’ And I open it and it says, ‘I’m Batgirl, love Adil,’ and my brain broke.”
You can see the video below.
Created by William Dozier, Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox, and Carmine Infantino and initially debuting in 1967’s Detective Comics #359, Barbara Gordon is the young daughter of Commissioner Gordon, who moonlighted as a vigilante while working as the head of the Gotham City Public Library.
Grace will be the latest actress to portray Barbara Gordon in live action, following with Yvonne Craig on the ’60s Batman series, Dina Meyer on the short-lived Birds of Prey series, Jete Laurence on Gotham, and Savannah Welch on Titans. Alicia Silverstone also portrayed a version of the Batgirl character (although not Barbara Gordon) in Batman & Robin.
