Nicole Maines On Supergirl And Playing A Trans Superhero

1. I love being able to, of course, give this icon to our community and to give us our own superhero that we can feel really proud of and we can identify with.

2. All of the scenes I get to do with Jesse [Rath]. He’s brilliant. Those scenes are so much fun, and we have so much good stuff coming up this season, I cannot wait for people to see.

3. I love every time she gets a new power. In the Season 6 premiere, everyone was going bonkers about her astral projection and being able to interact with something physically while she’s in the astral form.

BuzzFeed: Did you know from the start what her powers would be? Or have you been learning them as you go?

I don’t usually know about her powers in advance, but it has been really cool. Dreamer has gone from being Nura Nal’s ancestor, kind of based off Dream Girl, and I think Dreamer has moved into her own space. She’s kind of like if Dream Girl had Psylocke’s powers, or she’s like if Green Lantern could see the future. I remember reading about the energy blasts for the first time in Season 4, and I was texting everybody. I was like, “I get to shoot things out of my hands!” They don’t really tell me what it’s going to look like [with the special effects]. Also, they don’t really tell me what to do with my hands, how to hold myself, and what the blasts look like, so it’s really a lot of me in my apartment trying to come up with it. I loosely based it off of the waterbenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender and that ethereal one move into the other, but she also has this aggression to her. I’ve likened it to Uncle Iroh’s way of firebending too.

And, these days, with the massive success of WandaVision, I’m just trying not to look like I’m ripping off Scarlet Witch with my hands. Now, I’ve never been so conscious of bending my fingers, especially my ring finger. Now I’m like, “Keep your hands out or else people are going to think you’re Wanda!”

BuzzFeed: I love that you’re just hyperaware of Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda moves now.

Totally! She’s amazing and I’m just sitting here thinking, “Girl, I’m sorry. I’m really trying not to steal your gig or rip off your moves or anything.” I’m really hyperaware of it now. We just shot a scene where it’s a close-up of my hands, and I was thinking the whole time, “Extend your fingers, don’t bend a single one. Try not to channel Elizabeth Olsen.”