On DC’s Stargirl, the new Justice Society of America has more than just the Injustice Society to deal with when it comes to adversaries. Last week, Cindy Burman took matters into her own hands, suiting up as Shiv to try to earn her place at the ISA table by taking on the villain group’s newest threat. The initial battle is one that didn’t exactly end favorably for either young woman, with Stargirl injured and Shiv ultimately unsuccessful, but it’s something that laid the groundwork for Stargirl and the JSA to have a much more personal villain than simply dealing with the ISA of the past.
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Played by Meg DeLacy, Cindy Burman is poised to be a real challenge for the JSA. Not only does she know who Stargirl is, she likely has an idea of who the rest of the JSA is — and is desperate to prove herself to her father, the terrifying Dragon King, so that she can earn her seat at the table. But just because Cindy’s on a villain’s path doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to the character. ComicBook.com recently sat down with DeLacy to talk about Cindy, her motivations, doing some of her own stunts, and even the possibility that Courtney and Cindy could someday be friends — not to mention her hopes for Season 2.
Read on for our interview with DeLacy and find out all about Cindy Burman!
ComicBook.com: Congratulations by the way, I just heard the news about season two.
Meg DeLacy: Thank you so much. I know, we’re so excited.
I know you’ve played mean girls before, but Cindy is a completely different type of mean girl. How cool is it to get to play a mean girl, who’s also a super villain?
It’s incredible. And yeah, I’ve never played anyone so to the core kind of like psychopath evil. It’s such an honor to be able to take on such a full person and jumping into just the fact or the reasons why she is so bad. It’s awesome just being mean and not giving any apologies for what I say and walking away like, yeah, I just did that.
That’s so cool. You talk about her being so evil, but do you really think that Cindy is all bad or do you think it’s just she was kind of made that way?
She was definitely made that way. It was an origin story from literally day one. And her just upbringing has been so brutal and her relationship with her father is an utmost important thing to her. So getting the approval, getting the acceptance that she’s always wanted from her dad and not getting it for so long. Even just like the warmth of a father, like a good job, a hug, an I love you or anything and it is nowhere to be found. So building a character off of that was super interesting. I mean, she’s very opposite from me, but I know that the one thing that grounds her in being a human and something that I can relate to is just her insecurities, which is where all of the evil, all of the bad, all of the questioning, all of the control issues, and just power play all roots from. And so that was really fun to kind of jump into and learn about and become and then build on as I continue to find out what happens in her later years and how she was experimented on and where she sees herself in the future and how she wants friends but how she can’t because she’s too much in her own way.
I feel so bad for Cindy too. I was a big fan of the comics, even before the show came to life. In fact, being a fan of comics is part of the reason I’m so excited about the show. And Cindy went through some truly horrific things to become who she is.
Yeah, I know.
And I feel so terrible for her, but at the same time she does have that she’s trying to do things for her father and that’s a huge part of her motivation. What else do you think motivates Cindy?
I think that she wants a family. She wants a team. She wants to be part of something. She’s been alone, honestly, her whole life. Her mother figure is actually, she doesn’t obviously respect her stepmom. Her dad’s always off doing some experiment or working for the ISA and she’s too young to be part of it now. So she’s generally all by herself, but is withholding all of this information that she can’t tell anyone or talk to. And she doesn’t have a therapist, she doesn’t have, I mean, she has some friends, she has Jenny, but like no one really knows the depth of like how she did not live a normal life at all, or even a human life at all. So she wants love and she wants to be understood in a different way. And I think that she … like she knew that kind of herself by just being so gross and yucky and having control in a completely different way. If she can’t control anything in herself, she’s going to control everything outside of herself. Or try to.
This week we really see her kind of lose control to a certain extent. But also in the episode, we get to see a lot more about Cindy. And one of the things that jumped out for me is the entire bedroom scene where Cindy visits Courtney and it’s clear right away, there’s manipulation there. She’s definitely trying to intimidate Courtney, but there’s also something real and raw when Cindy says that she really could use a friend and also she brings up the parallels between the two of them. Do you think that there’s any space between Cindy and Courtney for them to actually be friends, even with everything that’s going on in their quote unquote heroic lives?
Honestly, I could see it happening. I really can because I mean, even though it was Courtney and Cindy were on opposite ends, she respects her like a lot for even attempting … and just for even attempting to try to have power that so quickly, like I’ve been training my whole life. Like she just figured this out. So it’s like, whoa, okay, respect, you have power. You have control. I don’t know. I could see them kind of like going hand in hand if they put everything else aside. It would be really interesting. I was so happy to do that scene with Brec to kind of show just like that in the bedroom, kind of just fun, friendly thing. And with that layer of manipulation and it was cool to kind of see come to life. But yeah, no, I could see them definitely helping each other out, possibly in the second season, but at the end of the day she is a villain and Courtney is a hero, so it would have to come back to that at one point.
One of the things that when I spoke with Geoff Johns about the show that comes up a lot is the concept of legacy. And while we mostly talk about that in terms of the heroes, it’s clear that there are legacies for the villains in the show as well. And that’s especially true for Cindy. How do you think Cindy approaches her legacy as well as that complicated relationship with her father, considering those truly awful things he’s done to her?
She approaches it in a way, she’s like, hey, you’ve been all of this stuff to me and I’ve been patient and I’ve been listening to you and I’ve been quiet and I’ve had to learn from my mistakes. And I get nothing back from that. So obviously it’s like, hey, can I please just move on to the next level? Her legacy, I mean, in the moment when she puts on her uniform and she’s like, hey, I’m just going to do this. I’m not going to tell anyone I’m just going to go off and go fight her, a little careless, it’s not necessarily respecting legacy because there’s strategy. There needs to be a plan. And that’s what kind of gets her in trouble in the first place.
And then since she can fight without her suit, because she has her blades, she’s like okay, well, let me just see if I can take this on on my own here and then prove to him afterwards. So it’s like, don’t ask for permission, you just apologize, that saying. So that was her plan afterwards, but obviously it blew up in her face and she was taken away. So I think she needs to kind of learn how to respect the legacy a little bit more. I think she’s a little, she’s ambitious, but she needs more patience because she’s getting herself into trouble slash now I’m just outing everyone else around her.
And you mentioned that she gets carried away, literally carried away after the end of that. Really awesome. So I thought the first fight scene between Stargirl and Shiv was incredible, but the second one was almost even better because it was so raw, she’s like I’ve got my blades in my arms, I’m just going to do this. I thought that was so rad.
Yeah. It was really cool.
It was really cool to watch. How scared should we be for Cindy at this point, since we see her get carried off into basically down to the lair, that’s kind of terrifying. How scared should we be for her?
Really scared. She’s in trouble. For sure. She has no idea what’s in store. So she’s in bad because now like her dad has already reprimanded her now once, maybe even twice. She’s afraid because she’s never gone against his rules to this extent. So yeah, I’d be very scared.
This is definitely worse than getting grounded.
Oh, completely, completely. You’re literally in the ground. In the ground.
Let’s talk for a moment about your super awesome Shiv costume, by the way, like I told you earlier, I’m a big fan of the comics and I’ve got to admit of all the costumes on this show, which are all fantastic, I am most obsessed with Shiv’s because it is so comics accurate, but at the same time, so fresh and different, it has just enough details and changes that it’s just like, that’s a villain costume. What was it like getting your own super suit?
Oh my God, it was incredible. First off those super suits, super suit engineers, they’re so talented and so just be catered to your body so much and there’s so much detail that goes into it. It probably took … it took months and months to actually finish the suit. And I was flying back and forth from Atlanta while we were shooting before I even put the suit on and she just kind of tailored it perfectly to my body. And like, even just like inch by inch. Cindy’s is super intricate, all of the lights and gadgets she has around her body and they made me feel very curvy and all the pads that they put on them. And yeah, it was incredible. Also just when you put the suit on you feel officially your character and you feel like you are not yourself anymore. This is a costume. This is a super world. And now you’re in a fantasy story. You’re not Meg playing Cindy. It was incredible.
And the stunts were so fun. I had never done some stunts before in my whole entire life. And that was probably one of my favorite things. And just overall in the whole show is learning how to trust my body in that way. And my stunt double was incredible and she’s so patient with me. When she was teaching me all these sequences and stuff it was very cool.
Did you get to do a lot of your own stunts?
Honestly, a fair amount, obviously like the twirls in the sky all that stuff, I wasn’t, that was not me. But everything honestly, towards the end, you gain trust from the stunt team in general to show that you can do it. On That’s the End, Brec and I were able to do a few of our stunts together, like when we both are fighting together, which was really cool to see and actually be in it with another actor. Yeah. It was surreal.
One of the things I’ve kind of noticed that the whole cast is very close and I think that’s just incredible, but considering your role as a nemesis and a kind of a super villain, who’s done some awful things to everyone, I’m thinking specifically about Yolanda and all of that, what’s it like getting to do some of these terrible things to your friends, essentially?
Honestly, it’s so much easier to be mean to Yvette as Yolanda because we are so close. It’s an interesting kind of dynamic, I know it’s weird to say that, but it’s like, if you can be so close to someone where you cry together and laugh together and all that stuff, you could be so cruel and just be like, ha ha, that was funny. I know it is cool. Everyone is very, very, very close and everyone kind of like molded into their character as you were shooting, but the heart of it is we all love each other at the end of the day. I mean it’s all make believe.
What’s been your favorite thing about Stargirl season one so far?
Yeah. Making the show I’d say stunts and also shooting in a new location. I’ve never lived anywhere else before for that amount of time. And then watching the show, I really enjoy seeing my father and I’s relationship come to life. Specifically that scene in episode eight, where I get up in his face and I’m like stop screaming at Mom. And I literally like say don’t passive aggressively. And I remember there was a line in the scene originally, she said, “Don’t passive aggressive me old man.” And I was like, oh god, like she literally says old man. And I remember talking to the director and I was like maybe we should take that out. Because I don’t really like when she like, yeah. Then I just had to kind of hone it all in within that one line which was really fun to kind of get on his level and kind of, I don’t know, threaten him back. I love that.
Do you think we’ll get to see more of that interesting father daughter dynamic as we go along?
A little bit, yeah, in season one for sure, season two possibly. Yeah. You’re about to jump into a whole other type of dynamic between Cindy and her father within the next few episodes, just because the circumstances are now completely be different.
I’m scared, but I’m also excited.
No, it’s exciting. It’s exciting. I promise.
Now that we officially have a season two, what are your hopes for Cindy in season two?
My hope’s obviously is for her to figure out how to properly become an ISA member and respectfully. I also would hope that maybe some confrontation happens between Courtney and Cindy and maybe even the JSA in general. I think it’d be really interesting to get us all in a room and see how we all react and talk. Whether that be in our suits or in high school, who knows?
DC’s Stargirl airs Tuesdays at 8/7 on The CW. New episodes debut Mondays on DC Universe.
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