Helen Slater, the star of 1984’s Supergirl, has offered her support to Milly Alcock following the release of the latest big-screen reboot, praising the new film’s lead performance even as the project faces scrutiny over its opening box office numbers.
Director Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl launched with a reported $37 million domestic opening weekend, a figure that has sparked industry discussion after DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran acknowledged it fell short of expectations.
Slater’s Praise
But Slater has chosen to focus on the positives, particularly Alcock’s take on the iconic heroine.
The 62-year-old actress told The Hollywood Reporter, “I loved the new Supergirl film. I thought Milly Alcock was astonishing — fierce, strong and great comic timing!”
Slater as Supergirl
Slater knows firsthand the pressures of stepping into the role of Kara Zor-El. She was just 18 when she was cast in the original film, marking her Hollywood debut as Superman’s cousin. At the time, she underwent an intense four-month physical training program designed to prepare her for the demands of the role.
She recalled, “I was very scrawny when I got the part. The trampolining was wild. I learned to do backflips on the trampoline, and then there’s an aerial ballet in the Supergirl film, which we practiced quite a lot.”
Her preparation included fencing, horseback riding, and strength training, ultimately resulting in her gaining around 15 pounds of muscle before filming began.
Original Film Struggles
Despite the scale of the production, the original film struggled at the box office, earning approximately $14 million domestically after its 1984 release. Slater had initially signed a contract for three films, but the poor performance meant she never returned to the role.
She said, “I know it didn’t do well because we didn’t make the second and third film. As long as I was working, that seemed like the good news.”
Even so, Slater said she never fully embraced the pressures of sudden fame that came with playing a superhero.
The City Slickers star said, “I felt shy about it. It wasn’t like, ‘Hooray, people recognize me.’ It just feels so strange and unusual.”
Returning to the Universe
Slater has since made returns to the DC Universe as she portrayed Clark Kent’s mother in Smallville and later appeared as the adoptive mother of Melissa Benoist’s Supergirl in the CW series.
Her connection to the franchise even extended into more recent years, with a cameo in the 2023 movie The Flash that reunited her with the legacy of the late Christopher Reeve’s Superman universe.
While some viewers assumed her appearance was entirely CGI, Slater confirmed she did in fact film the sequence.
She said, “I was in this very wild machine with 600 eyes around it. They were so kind to fly me out to London.”