New Warriors: Who Should Play Squirrel Girl?

Who should play Squirrel Girl?

Now that producer Kevin Beigel’s New Warriors, a comedy set in the Marvel Universe and featuring Squirrel Girl as the lead superhero, is officially headed to TV, we all want to know who’s going to be cast in the part.

It’s basically impossible to guess, of course, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the attempt.

ANNA KENDRICK

Anna Kendrick has expressed interest in playing Squirrel Girl — something that both fans and even some of the creative staff around the Marvel Cinematic Universe have gotten on board with.

Avengers: Infinity War filmmakers Joe and Anthony Russo have made it no secret they’d love to see her in the role, and she’s obviously both recognizable and bankable as one of the stars of the hit Pitch Perfect franchise.

So what counts against her? Frankly, the fact that Squirrel Girl isn’t coming to the movies, but to TV. Anything’s possible, we guess, but Kendrick at this point feels like a big enough star that she might be reluctant to commit to a TV series that would likely preclude her from a role in the Marvel movies.

PIPER CURDA

Known for Rule the Mix, ANT Farm, and I Didn’t Do It among other things, Curda has been on teen-focused TV pretty much nonstop for more than five years…and she’s got a hole in her schedule right now.

She’s charming, funny, and the kind of actor who’s ready to breakout in a higher-profile project. If they wanted to go actually young instead of going with a 20-something so has a bit more experience, you couldn’t do too much better.

…and if her Twitter history is any indication, she likes superhero TV!

BROOKE MARKHAM

A standout in Deidre and Laney Rob a Train (you’ll hear about that movie a little more soon), Brooke Markham has the look for the part and showed a wide range in the Netflix movie that starred Riverdale‘s Ashleigh Murray.

One of the great things about Squirrel Girl is that if you’ve got somebody who can act, who’s got a screen presence, and who has a good banter with the rest of the cast, you don’t have to cast somebody who “looks like a superhero,” so it gives the flexibility to cast somebody who hasn’t always been under consideration for lead roles, or who isn’t built like Willa Holland or Katrina Law.

Markham has a great screen presence, and she’s pretty, but she isn’t Anna Kendrick. She’s one of a few people on this list who we would love to see step into the role so that Squirrel Girl could be as unconventional a hero onscreen as she is on the page.

CHINA ANNE MCCLAIN

Since she’s in ANT Farm, who’s to say she doesn’t already have a pretty great relationship with Disney, right?

The singer and actress has her own built-in fan base, which is certainly nice when you’re going to step up to be the “main” hero in an ensemble cast. Squirrel Girl is going to have to step up into the role of “main character” without, one assumes, totally dominating the screen time. 

A similarly-charismatic actress, High School Musical‘s Vanessa Hudgens, pulled it off this season on the DC comedy Powerless, so why not China Anne McClain?

KACEY ROHL

Kacey Rohl, who had a brief appearance on iZombie last year before joining the Arrow cast as a recurring guest star (y’know, Felicity’s Helix BFF).

She’s been a really engaging screen presence, and has managed to do a really good job of putting up a bright, smiling facade while having something else going on in the background.

That’s more or less the same role she played on iZombie, appearing in one of those rare episodes of a crime drama where they didn’t actually get to put the killer in prison becuase she managed to work the system. But she’s so good at playing the charming, wide-eyed innocent that we kind of want to see what Rohl could do with a role that didn’t require her to remind us once every 40 minutes or so that she’s actually evil.

 

MAE WHITMAN

I mean…

If you need more than to look at her role in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World to see how much fun she could be as Squirrel Girl, take a look at Whitman’s presence in Parenthood, where she stood shoulder to shoulder with powerhouse performances from the likes of Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, and Dax Sheppard.

Her off-camera persona is pretty great, too; she and Graham, in particular, are charming, hilarious and all-around entertaining on social media.

RACHEL CROW

One of the best parts of the truly excellent Netflix movie Deidre and Laney Rob a Train.

As Laney, Crow had the unenviable task of being the second lead to Ashleigh Murray’s complex and likable main character.

Along the way, she had to play angry, wounded, mischievous, and desperate — and it quickly became obvious that Crow is a special talent who was able to move through all of those personality traits and emotions seemingly effortlessly.

Almost all of the young actors in Deidre and Laney (the ones who had any significant screen time, anyway) delivered top-notch performances, and are young actors we want to see more from. Crow and Murray in particular.

SHANNON PURSER

The Stranger Things star, who has more recently appeared as Ethel Muggs in Riverdale, was one of the first people to express an interest in playing Squirrel Girl.

Purser, whose stint in Stranger Things made her Internet famous, took to Twitter months ago to confirm her interest in the role.

She wrote, “So who do I talk to about being Squirrel Girl?” And, of course, the Internet gushed over the young actress’ question. Since her post went live, several executives at Marvel Comics have reached out to the actress to see if she’d like to drop by their NYC headquarters.

So, while there’s no offer (yet) for Purser to take up the hero’s mantle, she has at least caught the eye of Marvel’s mightiest creators.

Like Kendrick, producers have acknowledged that Purser’s is a name that came up in conversations for New Warriors already.