There’s a new Batwoman in town. After Ruby Rose’s shocking departure from the title role last spring, Javicia Leslie will take on the mantle of Gotham City’s newest masked vigilante for the second season of “Batwoman” on the CW.
The 33-year-old actress, best known for her work on the CBS dramatic comedy “God Friended Me” and the BET police drama “The Family Business”, will play Ryan Wilder, who is a new addition to the DC universe.
A former drug dealer who spent years avoiding Gotham City police, Ryan has a tragic life story: she lost her single mother in childbirth, her foster mother was killed in front of her and she served 18 months in prison for a crime she has not committed herself. Given the scarcity of her job opportunities, Ryan is forced to live in a van by the river, where she finds Kate Kane’s Batsuit. After taking a test drive with the costume, she feels powerful enough to take control of her own life and fight the system that ignored her for decades.
It is a dream role for Leslie, whose naturally engaging and caring presence is immediately reflected in her stunning debut as the first black and bisexual actress to wear the legendary Batwoman cape and hood. As a self-proclaimed “super fan” of the DC and Arrowverse universe, Leslie auditioned for the lead role during Zoom a few months after the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I was very, very shocked,” Leslie told NBC News, recalling the day in early July when she got the part. “I really thought, when my manager’s number appeared on my phone, ‘Ugh, I don’t think I understand.’ When I answered the phone, she said, ‘Can I speak to Ryan Wilder?’ And I just lost it. I couldn’t believe it; I started to cry. I called my mom and we cried together. “
Born in the city of Augsburg, in southern Germany, to a family of American military men, Leslie was raised in Maryland and graduated in administration from Hampton University, a historically black university in Virginia, where she also starred in several theatrical productions and began to fall in love with acting.
“I really loved the idea of being able to get away from life and how I could really feel some of the pain I was going through as a person,” she said. “It made me realize how much I needed to act.”
Instead of looking for acting after graduation, Leslie decided to find a more stable job in her early 20s and worked for the government on a two-year contract. Although she found the work meaningful, she said that she felt “suffocated” and “couldn’t express myself” in a creative and rewarding way. After her contract ended in 2012, Leslie moved to Los Angeles with a small savings saved to help her career change, and since then she has pledged to master her craft for most of the past decade.
In the eight weeks between getting the role and starting filming, Leslie focused on getting in shape using her mixed martial arts experience and creating her character’s story, imagining the harrowing events that happened before Ryan found the Batsuit.
Leslie said that Ryan’s character development process has been collaborative with showrunner Caroline Dries, the series’ executive producers and the rest of the creative team, who also made the decision to renew the iconic Batsuit to better suit Leslie.
“It was important that you could see the Batwoman’s silhouette,” said Leslie. “I have a lot of muscle tone in my body and I think it can be difficult to accentuate it. It also helps to show my curves. “
“Creating an Afro was very important, because it was like, ‘OK, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this. If we’re going to have a Black Batwoman, we’re going to have a sister, ”she added. “I think this Batwoman is very strong, and you can see the strength only in how she looks when she’s dressed.”
Leslie has championed diverse on-screen representations and acknowledged that her new role has the potential to be a game changer when it comes to diversity in the superhero genre – especially for black and LGBTQ artists.
“This is not for me; this is for everyone who feels under-represented, ”said Leslie. “I think one of the things that really makes underrepresented people feel that they are not enough and that they need to continue to fight so hard to feel represented is because they couldn’t see themselves.”
While the response to her cast has been largely positive, there are always those who hate social media, including some who have criticized the cast of a queer black woman for the role of iconic superhero. But Leslie said she doesn’t allow haters to affect her.
“Nobody has even seen the show yet, so if they have anything negative to say, they are usually coming from a place of pain for something they are experiencing. When I see things like that, I don’t take anything personally, ”she said. “This is just one of the many roles that I will play in my life and because of that, I am really able to operate with my goals in mind, which is just creating incredible content.”
Using a suitable analogy, Leslie said he sees the situation “as good versus evil”.
“I can’t let evil win because they hurt my feelings,” she said. “It is imperative that the good win, and the good is finally to have representation. It is good to finally be able to see anyone in Batworld being black and homosexual. “
While the introduction of his character will compensate for some of the established character dynamics, notably that between Batwoman and superstar Alice (Rachel Skarsten), Leslie provokes that Ryan’s personal journey will drive the development of the second season.
“Ryan kind of comes as a solo person on his own mission, and you really see her having to change her mindset about what this outfit means and what his responsibility means. You see her embarking on this journey of becoming a superhero, ”said Leslie. “She didn’t start out as a superhero; she just starts out as a normal person who is getting into it to get her own revenge for things. As she continues to move through this journey, she really begins to realize what this outfit represents, and this is how she becomes the superhero that Gotham City needs. “
The second season of “Batwoman” opens on Sunday at 8 pm on The CW.
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