Milly Alcock Opens Up About Supergirl Suit, Trolls, and DCU Future

Milly Alcock has a lot to say right now — about the suit, the trolls, and what comes next. With Supergirl arriving in theaters on June 26, the 25-year-old Australian actress is front and center in a sweeping Variety cover profile, and she is not holding back on any of it.

First, the news that might sting a little for fans who’ve been counting down the days to see Kara Zor-El in full costume: Alcock won’t be wearing the iconic Supergirl suit as often as you’d think. When asked at what point in the film she suits up, she laughed and said, “I don’t know if I can tell you! It’s DC — I’m scared.” Then she gave it up anyway: “I don’t wear it as much as people will think. It’s a journey.” Based on what we’ve seen in the trailers, expect to spend a lot of time with Kara in her casual t-shirt-and-jacket look as she travels across the galaxy.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The film is adapted from Tom King’s 2022 comic series Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which follows a 21-year-old Kara on a raw, personal quest for vengeance alongside a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and, of course, Krypto the dog. The official synopsis puts it plainly: “When an unexpected and ruthless adversary strikes too close to home, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, reluctantly joins forces with an unlikely companion on an epic, interstellar journey of vengeance and justice.” This is character-driven sci-fi first, superhero spectacle second — and Alcock seems to have understood that assignment from day one.

She Almost Ran From the Role Entirely

What’s remarkable is that Alcock came very close to not doing this at all. After her acclaimed run as young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen on HBO’s House of the Dragon, she wanted to avoid another massive franchise. Then 2025’s Sirens came and went, and the work dried up. “I was so s***-scared that my life was over at 22. And, of course, it wasn’t,” she told Vanity Fair earlier this year.

When the Supergirl opportunity came around, she still panicked. “I was like, ‘I have to do all that?! No!’ Because she’s in, like, every scene,” Alcock told Variety. “My personal experience of being Milly mirrored Kara’s experience, which was ‘Hide. Run away. Pretend it’s not happening.’ And then you have to face it to heal a part of yourself that you’ve been neglecting.”

She talked herself into it the hard way. “I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was like, ‘Who am I to turn down this opportunity?’ I knew that it was what I needed to do, because it scared me. And I thought, ‘Well, I get one big, bad, beautiful life. Why not f**king go for it? Just f**king go for it! What are you, scared? Get over yourself.’”

The parallel between Alcock and her character runs deep. “What Kara was going through that I was going through is she’s someone who has been at war with themselves. And I think that’s a very universal feeling — especially for women. So it’s been a really surprising journey. I never thought taking on a superhero film would do that. But it has! And what a beautiful thing.”

She Hasn’t Seen Wonder Woman. Or Captain Marvel. Or Black Widow.

Here’s the confession that’s going to get people talking: Alcock admits she didn’t study the female-led superhero films that came before her. Not Black Widow. Not Captain Marvel. Not even DC’s own Wonder Woman. “Which is probably not great,” she said with a laugh. “I should just lie!”

It’s a candid, slightly chaotic admission — but it also tracks with her approach to the role. She wasn’t trying to build on what Gal Gadot or Brie Larson did. She was trying to figure out who Kara Zor-El is. DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran seems to agree that fresh eyes were the right call. “I never felt that there was superhero fatigue,” Safran has said. “I felt it was mediocre movie fatigue. You gotta try something new. You have to change the game a little bit. The essential story on which Supergirl is based is something cool and original and we haven’t seen before.”

The Trolls Came. She Was Ready.

Earlier this year, Alcock told Vanity Fair that her time on House of the Dragon had made her acutely aware that “simply existing as a woman in that space is something that people comment on. We have become very comfortable having this weird ownership of women’s bodies.” She never said men. She said people.

It didn’t matter. The backlash came fast — the same playbook that was run against Brie Larson after her comments about film criticism back in 2018. Alcock watched it happen in real time, and her reaction was essentially: I told you so.

“I didn’t even say ‘men’ — I said ‘people!’” she told Variety. “And they got so angry. I was like, ‘You’re proving my point. You’re proving my point!’”

She didn’t stop there. “I guess women know that this is just how it’s always been, unfortunately. And it’s from a lot of people whose profiles have no photo, who are burner accounts. Or someone’s name and then ‘Dad of four, Christian,’ which is hilarious to me. But I mean, whose opinion do you really care about? If you’re pissing the right kind of people off, you’re doing OK.”

She’s Gen Z, she admits, which means being online is basically hardwired. The negative comments do get in sometimes — “sometimes people reinforce beliefs that you have about yourself, and you’re like: ‘Now someone’s said it! It’s true!’ And you’ve got to remind yourself that it’s not” — but she’s developed a system. When the doomscrolling spiral starts, she puts down the phone and goes to a café. Sits alone. Reads. Watches people. “Just being a participant in real life,” she said, “has been helpful.”

Supergirl Is Just the Beginning of Her DCU Run

Whatever the online noise, the DCU is clearly betting big on Alcock. She made her debut in last year’s Superman in a brief but memorable closing-moments cameo — crash-landing into the Fortress of Solitude to collect her dog, Krypto, who also plays a central role in Supergirl. Now Safran has confirmed she’s already heading to Atlanta to begin filming Superman: Man of Tomorrow, James Gunn’s sequel to Superman that teams David Corenswet’s Clark Kent with Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor to take on Brainiac (Lars Eidinger). “She’s a major part of what we’re doing,” Safran said simply.

Man of Tomorrow is shaping up to be a stacked ensemble — Matthew Lillard, Adria Arjona, Sinqua Walls, and Aaron Pierre (reprising his role as John Stewart/Green Lantern from the upcoming HBO series Lanterns) are all aboard, alongside the returning core cast from Superman. Alcock’s Kara will be the third film in her DCU arc when it opens July 9, 2027.

Before that, there’s the small matter of Supergirl itself — directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya), written by Ana Nogueira, and co-starring Jason Momoa as the alien mercenary Lobo, Matthias Schoenaerts as villain Krem of the Yellow Hills, and a full ensemble including David Krumholtz as Zor-El, Emily Beecham as Alura In-Ze, and Ferdinand Kingsley and Diarmaid Murtagh in supporting roles.

Fandango has already dropped a new exclusive image of Alcock in the suit as part of their Summer Movie Preview, and the film opens in IMAX and theaters across North America on June 26 — with international dates beginning June 24.

“Of course I’m scared,” Alcock said of taking this all on. “Of course I want people to like me and the movie. But ultimately, it’s out of my control.”