Milly Alcock, who is leading the upcoming Supergirl film, is opening up about how she prepares herself for backlash.
As someone who previously starred on HBO’s House of the Dragon, she has some experience with an intense fandom. And that’s only helped her prepare for the inevitable backlash she’ll face as a woman leading a superhero blockbuster.
“It definitely made me aware that simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on,” Alcock recently told Vanity Fair of what she learned from working on the Game of Thrones prequel series. “We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies. I can’t really stop them. I can only be myself.”
The Sirens actress previously told Nylon in 2022 that she tries not to engage with online discourse regarding her projects “because it doesn’t benefit me.”
“It just makes me incredibly anxious,” she added at the time. “Me seeing my face constantly is straining. No one should have to do that. It fuckin’ sucks, man. I don’t know how the socialites of the world can do that. It’s kind of driving me off the wall. It’s an incredibly difficult space to navigate.”
Elsewhere in her interview with VF, Alcock was also asked about legendary directors Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott’s criticism of the superhero genre. Scorsese previously said those types of films are “not cinema” and compared them to “theme parks,” while Scott has called them “boring as shit.”
“I get it,” she responded. “They’ve been around for fucking ever making phenomenal films. … Not every film is for everyone. The beauty of art is that you can be selective.”
Supergirl hits theaters on June 26. It follows Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, as she joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home.