Supergirl Star Melissa Benoist On Comparison To SNL’s Black Widow

CBS’ Supergirl had the bad luck of debuting its first trailer shortly after Saturday Night Live put together their hilarious Black Widow: Age of Me sketch. People immediately started seeing comparisons between the two.

Entertainment Weekly brought up the SNL Black Widow sketch to Supergirl herself Melissa Benoist and then followed it up by asking the 26-year-old actress if Supergirl sent a message of female empowerment.

“I do. Of course, I do. We don’t really take ourselves too seriously in that respect. The camp is going to be there. It’s a superhero show. But I don’t think that takes away from the female empowerment. Obviously you see Kara in her work atmosphere, it resembles the Black Widow parody, but what you don’t see is Kara kicking butt,” Benoist said of the Black Widow spoof. “There’s so much more in the pilot that I think people are really going to be surprised by. Also, it’s a girl. Supergirl, that whole discussion, it’s a girl figuring out how to become a woman. [The SNL spoof] came out and all of us thought it was so hilarious. I don’t think any of us expected people to compare them or put them side-by-side.”

Let’s not harp on the negative. Melissa is our Supergirl and will meet and greet adoring fans this year at San Diego Comic-Con. To get the coveted role, the Colorado native had to go through a grueling three-month process. “I auditioned around Halloween 2014 and then didn’t land the part until February 2015,” Benoist explained. “I went through multiple screen-tests, multiple auditions with the producing team. There was a lot.”

Once she was selected it was time to get fitted for her costume. “The first time I put the costume on, it was a mixture of a lot of emotions,” she remembered. “It’s impossible not to feel empowered when you put it on. You would think, “Oh, it’s silly. I’m putting on tights. I’m putting on a leotard and a skirt. There’s muscles built into the suit. There’s a cape. I’m going to feel like it’s Halloween.” But something changes internally. I feel like a different person almost. It really is an alter ego, where I feel inspired, hopeful and empowered. I tried the suit for the first time on at the costume designer’s house. I had just had an injury to my eye, so I had an eye patch on. [Laughs] So simultaneously, I’m feeling all these feelings of empowerment and positivity and femininity and strength, and I have this pirate patch on essentially. It was a little goofy. There was two things going on at once — two opposing factors of trying the suit on.”

In the vast DC Comics Universe of super heroes, the rich mythology of Superman, the planet Krypton and the House of El is perhaps the most famous and instantly recognizable. Enter Supergirl (Melissa Benoist). Born Kara Zor-El on the doomed planet Krypton, the preteen Kara escaped at the same time as the infant Kal-El, but didn’t arrive on Earth until many years later after being lost in the Phantom Zone. Protected and raised by her adopted family, the Danvers, Kara grew up in the shadow of her foster sister, Alex, and learned to hide the phenomenal powers she shares with her famous cousin. Years later, at age 24, living in National City and working as an assistant for Catco Worldwide Media mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart), Kara has spent so many years trying to fit in that she forgot to ever stand out. All that changes when she decides to embrace her superhuman abilities and become the hero she was always destined to be.

Supergirl will premiere October 26 at 8:30 p.m. on CBS in the USA.