Supergirl first teaser trailer: The moment Australian actor Milly Alcock ‘knew’ her life was going to change

DC fans got a tease of Supergirl when she showed up for a cameo earlier this year in her cousin Superman’s big extravaganza.

But that was never going to be enough, and now the first Supergirl trailer has dropped ahead of the film’s release in June.

The two-minute teaser is soundtracked to Blondie’s Call Me, and builds on the irreverent and messy persona of Kara Zor-El, and the contrast between her and her do-gooder kin.

It’s also the return of everyone’s favourite chaotic canine, Krypto, who pees on top of a newspaper that has Superman’s heroic exploits on the frontpage. As we discovered at the end of Superman, Krypto is actually Kara’s dog, and Clark was just pet-sitting.

As we know, like owner, like pupper.

Director Craig Gillespie, the Australian filmmaker behind I, Tonya and Cruella, and who was picked by DC Studios’ co-boss, James Gunn, explained that he has always been drawn to flawed characters, which is what Kara is.

“To be able to figure out the empathy, and what is motivating them, and seeing people as outsiders and be able to pull themselves up,” Gillespie said during a Q&A hosted by Gunn. “The character of Supergirl, as she’s written, has a lot of demons, and she has a lot of baggage, and she’s not dealing with it at the beginning of the film.”

The script is from Ana Nogueira, adapted from Tom King’s comics run, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and stars Australian actor Milly Alcock as the reluctant superhero.

“I don’t think she wants to necessarily wear that costume, she doesn’t necessarily want to even be a hero,” Gunn said.

“One of the cool things to me about the movie is that most of the movies we’ve had with female-led heroes have been pretty much like the perfect bad-arses, and Supergirl is not that.”

Gunn revealed that he saw Alcock in the role as soon as he read King’s comic series. He recalled telling Peter Safran, the other boss of DC Studios, “Do you know who I think she should be? That little girl from House of the Dragon”.

Alcock is best known to international audiences for her role in the Game of Thrones spin-off as the younger version of one of the main characters. She had an active TV career in Australia in shows including Upright, Pine Gap and The Gloaming before House of the Dragon, and then followed it up with the Netflix drama Sirens.

Alcock said she discovered she had nabbed the coveted role when Gunn texted her a link to an article on Deadline that announced her casting, but that she had a good feeling about it earlier.

“As soon as I left the screen test, I was like, ‘f—k, I’ve got it’, and I knew it. I just had an instinct,” she said. “I had an intuition that I was like, ‘I think this is going to change my life, so I was really excited, but then I was, obviously, really scared of how am I going to do this, how am I going to pull this off?’.”

Gunn and Safran took over the DC screen slate in late-2022 with a brief to reboot the entire franchise, starting with Superman.

Supergirl will also feature Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Momoa and Eve Ridley.

Gillespie teased what audiences might expect from Supergirl that’s a little different, including the film’s denouement. “The ending is very surprising and incredibly empowering, and she’s basically just so kick-arse and owns who she is in an unapologetic way.

“That is really exhilarating to be able to see a character that isn’t trying to conform to anything, that just plays by her own rules and defines herself on her terms, and with the repercussions that can come from that.

“It’s going to be a little shocking.”

Supergirl is in cinemas in June