BATWOM AN
She’s The (Bat)ManW W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^029
interested in the role, given that, at the time, she
was starring in The Meg on the big screen. To
her surprise, Rose was “interested in playing a
lesbian who had all this rich background, who
was really strong and could make a difference
and change lives and all of the positives about
the show, so she signed up to do it”.
With her leading lady found and her series
greenlit, Dries began crafting the story and
Kate’s on-screen supporting cast. “I found all of
the stories incredibly rich, especially her origin
story and the way that it unfolded in these
fl ashbacks. But what I found was that over time
the comics kind of started and stopped and
started and stopped, and it was introducing
all these different mythologies, and I was like,
‘hmm, there isn’t a real through-line here apart
from this story about Kate’s military experience,
and being kicked out because she was gay, and
Kate’s incredibly complicated family dynamic’.
So those were the things I really globbed on
to. Without spoiling where the story is going,
I’m really trying to stay true to the Greg Rucka
version of the origin story,” Dries explains,
singling out Rucka and J H Williams III’s
defi nitive run on Batwoman.
Season One certainly links strongly to that
origin story, with the presence of Kate’s father
Jacob Kane (Dougray Scott) and Lewis Carroll-
quoting villain Alice (Rachel Skarsten). Driestells us she’s interested in exploring “just how
complicated and intertwined the relationship is
between [Alice] and Kate and Jacob Kane”.
The rest of the cast was either borrowed
from elsewhere in DC’s Bat-books, or invented
by Dries and her writing team. Where Kate
has a cousin in the comics, Bette Kane, AKA
Flamebird, in the show Kate has a step-sister,
Mary (Nicole Kang). “It seems like Kate and
Mary have literally nothing in common, but
what we’ll discover is that Mary is a hero in
her own right and these two have a tonne in
common,” Dries explains. A more recognisable
name joining the show is Luke Fox, the son of
Batman’s long-term R&D guy, Lucius Fox. Luke