Batwoman Ruby Rose Talks About Her First Bat Wings

During an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, The Meg star Ruby Rose shared some thoughts about being cast as Batwoman, one of the first lesbian superheroes on TV.

The actress, best known for her work on Orange is the New Black and John Wick Chapter Two, told Fallon that she was excited to see children dressed up as Batwoman for Halloween, and that she couldn't wait to visit kids in the hospital -- something she has been doing since she started to get famous -- in her Batwoman costume. Then, while looking forward to the costume she will debut during the big Arrowverse crossover this December, Rose looked back on another time she dressed up in bat wings.

"My first attempt at Batwoman is when I was a kid," Rose told Fallon. "My mom has a little bat tattoo, a Batman tattoo, because she had pet bats growing up. She nursed these little pet bats back to life but then they couldn't go anywhere because they were domesticated so they lived in the house and just [expletive] everywhere….She was telling me the story about, and we grew up without a lot of money, so I would make my toys. I made bat wings out of little cardboard boxes. I would jump and she would catch me, and we had to keep gaffer-taping them, because they were all soggy and gross. I just lived in them — and now I'll get ones that aren't made out of cardboard."

In comics, Batwoman is the first major DC superhero to be openly gay. On TV, she follows in the footsteps of Thunder (Nafessa Williams) on The CW's own Black Lightning.

First introduced in 1956, Batwoman largely disappeared from continuity until 2006, when she was reintroduced and reinvented. An openly gay Jewish woman, Batwoman has a military background and has proven herself every bit Batman's equal on the pages of comic books. She's even served as the primary featured hero for Gotham City in Detective Comics while Batman wasnt in the picture.

The new-look Batwoman debuted in 52, the weekly series co-written by DC's biggest superstars, and so none of them is credited as the writer behind Kate Kane -- but it has never been a secret that it was Rucka who wrote most of the material featuring the character even in 52 before he took her back to Gotham.

In The CW series, which the network said is in the early stages of development, the character appears to be leaning heavily into that comic book representation. In a casting description for Batwoman, Kate Kane is described as proudly openly gay and having once aspired to have a successful military career, dreams that were snuffed when she was kicked out of West Point for coming out. As in comics, television's Batwoman will also have to face many of her own personal demons even as she suits up as Gotham's symbol of hope and justice.

Rose's casting comes on the heels of Monday's statement by network president Mark Pedowitz that the network anticipates a pilot for the Batwoman series as early as midseason.

"We'll do a pilot for midseason, whether it goes to series, I cannot tell you," Pedowitz said at the TCA summer press tour. "We have five [DC shows] on the air and just added a sixth night."

Caroline Dries, who served as a writer and producer on The Vampire Diaries, is set to be the executive producer on Batwoman. Joining Dries in the EP role are Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, and Geoff Johns, the latter of which recently stepped down as the head of DC Entertainment. Berlanti and Schechter will produce via Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television. If picked up, the series would air in the 2019 TV season.

Fans will get their first look at Rose as Batwoman in the big Arrowverse crossover event this December on The CW.

A previous draft of this story misidentified the program as Jimmy Kimmel Live, rather than The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. We apologize for any confusion.