Even the most accomplished actors sometimes feel out of their depth on a movie.
Gwyneth Paltrow, who returns to the big screen this fall as an Old Hollywood star trying to make a new start in “Marty Supreme,” was “way out over her skis” in her early 20s when she played a Park Avenue wife opposite older co-star Michael Douglas in “A Perfect Murder.” Jennifer Lopez, who showcases her triple-threat skill set in the musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” felt a “huge” responsibility to get it right when portraying Tejana icon Selena Quintanilla in the 1997 biopic about the late singer. And Emily Blunt, who goes toe-to-toe with Dwayne Johnson in the mixed martial arts saga “The Smashing Machine,” had to avoid being typecast as the go-to “acerbic British bitch” after the success of 2006’s “The Devil Wears Prada.”
These and many more tales from inside the maelstrom of megawatt stardom were the subject of The Envelope’s 2025 Oscar Actresses Roundtable, where Paltrow, Lopez and Blunt were joined by Sydney Sweeney, who transformed physically and emotionally to play boxing legend Christy Martin in “Christy”; Tessa Thompson, who tries to keep up appearances as the title character in “Hedda,” Nia DaCosta’s acclaimed new adaptation of “Hedda Gabler”; and Elle Fanning, who plays an American star struggling to find her way into a Norwegian art film in “Sentimental Value.”
In conversation with Times critic Lorraine Ali, the six performers discussed how they deal with bad press, resist being put in career boxes and inhabited some of the most-talked-about film roles of the year.
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Jennifer, you play the title role in “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a story set in Argentina during a military dictatorship. It takes place in a political prison where the men imagine themselves in a glamorous, sweeping musical. As producer on the film, why was it important for you to tell this story now?
Lopez: It’s never been more relevant, which is really scary. Manuel Puig wrote the novel in the 1970s about these two prisoners during the uprising in Argentina. It really is a love story about seeing the humanity in another person, like two very different people with different political views. One is queer, and the other is a political revolutionary. The two of them were like oil and water. But they escaped into the [fantasy of] a movie, which is “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” They slowly come together and see each other’s souls instead of who they were on the outside. I think with everything that’s happening in the world right now, especially in this country, with Latinos and queer communities being targeted, demonized — there’s never been a more important time to say, “Look at me on the inside. Stop with all of this divisiveness. See people for who they are.”
Gwyneth, “Marty Supreme” is set in the 1950s. You play Kay Stone, a faded starlet. Who did you base her on?
Paltrow: She’s an amalgam of a few ideas, but principally Grace Kelly, who also had this amazing movie career and was this incredible star, and then walked away from it for marriage. My character does the same. When I was looking at photographs [of Kelly during] her films, and then photographs after she got married, it was like the light dimmed. She lost something. My character had a very rough road to get to stardom, so she walks away from this big career to marry an unsuitable but very wealthy man. And then her son dies, so she has a lot of tragedy.
Sydney, “Christy” is the story of Christy Martin, a pioneer in popularizing women’s boxing in the 1980s and 1990s. You really transformed for the role. Can you talk about that transformation?
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Sweeney: Her story is probably one of the most important stories I’ll ever get to tell, so I felt that immense importance. I needed to fully transform myself. I trained every day for three months leading up to shooting. I put on 35 pounds. And I got to spend time with her, and now she’s like one of my best friends. I just kinda lived and breathed Christy for the entirety of the whole thing.
There’s so much violence in her world, particularly outside the ring. Was the real-life Christy there when you shot the domestic abuse scenes between her and her husband, Jim Martin (played by Ben Foster)?
Sweeney: To protect her, we didn’t have her on set when we were shooting the last part of the movie where the domestic violence came into play. The following Monday, we had her come to set, and the entire crew stood up and just started applauding. It was so beautiful. Then after that, she was on set all the time. We would be in the ring, and she’d be sitting [outside the ring], and I’d hear her say, “Hit her with the left hook, Sydney!”
Lopez: She was coaching from the sidelines?
Sweeney: Oh, yeah. We were having a blast. And in the fights, we actually fought. My No. 1 thing with all the girls was that I don’t want this to be fake because so much of Christy comes to life in the ring. I didn’t want to have [the camera] at the back of my head or have to cut to fake the punches. Every single one of those girls, they’re badasses. They punched me, and I punched them. We had bloody, broken noses. I had a concussion.
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Blunt: Sydney broke someone’s nose.
Sweeney: I got a concussion. I’m not going to confirm [what else happened]. But I definitely caused some, uh, bruises and blood.
Emily, with “The Smashing Machine,” you play Dawn Staples, girlfriend to Mark Kerr, who was a pioneer in the field of MMA fighting. How much did you know about that world before taking on the role?
Blunt: I knew very little, and I was moved that Mark Kerr was my first window into [MMA] because he is such a juxtaposition to the violence of the world. This is a man who headbutted people to oblivion, and when you meet him, he’s like [subdued tone], “Hi, how are you?” He’s so nice. And I said to Mark one day, “How did you do that?” And he goes, “I know, it was nasty.” He’s just so sweet and dear and eloquent. But I think he was sort of filled with this uncontrollable rage that he hardly knew what to do with, and he struggled so much with his own demons. The movie is more about struggle and fragility than it is about fighting.
Tessa, “Hedda” is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda Gabler” and you play the title role. Your castmate, Nina Hoss, said the role of Hedda Gabler is for women actors what Hamlet is for men. Do you agree?
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Thompson: I like to say that Hamlet is the male Hedda, just because I think it’s a nice reversal. But people say that because the truth is that we don’t have that many [roles] that are canonical in the same way that Hedda Gabler is, so it feels like this behemoth. It’s one of the parts in theater that feels like a mountain to climb. There’s a kind of complexity to the character that has compelled audiences and actors for centuries … which is the case with both [Hedda and Hamlet]. But I think the comparison is kind of boring, frankly. I remember an actor saying to me, “Oh, I learned in drama school you have to have your Hedda ready.” And I did not have my Hedda ready, but I got it ready.
The wardrobe and sets in “Spider Woman,” “Hedda” and “Marty Supreme” are beautiful. Did you swipe mementos when the films wrapped?
Paltrow: No, you can’t.
Lopez: I mean, you can.
Paltrow: I tried the Birkin bag from “The Royal Tenenbaums” [but I could not], so I took the loafers instead.
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Blunt: Not the same. Not quite.
Thompson: [To Gwyneth]: I was almost you [in “Tenenbaums”] for Halloween, but I couldn’t get it together in time and I wanted do you justice. But one day …
Paltrow: Next year. I’ll lend you the loafers.
Elle, in “Sentimental Value,” you play a Hollywood star who’s cast in an art–house European production. In reality, you were shooting the massive production “Predator: Badlands” when you joined “Sentimental Value,” a smaller European film. Were the parallels with your character, Rachel, apparent at the time?
Fanning: I got a call that “Joachim Trier has a part for you and would like to talk over Zoom, and here’s the script.” I was like, “Oh, my gosh, Joachim Trier [who made] ‘The Worst Person in the World.’” I would’ve said yes to one line. But I was already doing “Predator.” I was about to go off to New Zealand, but it’s very important for Joachim to rehearse, so he [wanted me] to come to Oslo. I wasn’t sure which movie I could do, and I wanted to do both. So, of course, there were parts to the character that I could relate to. I kept thinking, “There’s a lot of meta-ness going on in this film,” particularly for my character, being the Hollywood actress coming to Oslo for the first time, working with a Norwegian director. And coming off of this action-packed film to go to this very intimate, emotional foreign film, they fed into each other in ways that I didn’t expect them to.
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How do you all deal with rough reviews?
Paltrow: I try to never read anything about myself, full stop, ever. Period.
Lopez: Wait, not anything about yourself? Ever? Period? Because I don’t read reviews of my films either, but people will bring it to you it when it’s good and you’re like, “Oh, nice.” But there’s other things they’ll bring you …
Paltrow: Sometimes I’ll come upon it.
Lopez: And you want to die.
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Paltrow: Want to die. Like when someone forwards you a link to something really horrible about yourself, and they’re like, “Oh, this is bull—.” I do try to avoid [that kind of stuff]. I deleted Instagram.
Blunt: Me too.
Lopez: You need to cleanse every once in a while.
Sweeney: Sounds nice. I can’t do that.
How do you push the negative stuff about you or your personal life aside and focus on your work?
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Sweeney: It helps when you love what you do. Like, if you’re loving the characters that you get to play, you’re loving the people you get to work with, and you’re proud of what you’re doing, then it’s just outside noise. When we walk on set, the world kind of disappears and we get come to life in a different kind of way. Those are the moments and the relationships that matter. Everything else is just people we don’t know.
Paltrow: [To Lopez] I want to hear your answer to this question.
Lopez: From the very beginning, for whatever reason, I’ve been a lightning rod for nice things and a lot of negativity. And it’s hard because you say to yourself, “These people don’t get me. They don’t see me. They don’t understand me.” Then all of a sudden they do. And then they don’t again. Even from when I was very young, I would always say, “I know who I am. I’m a good person. I know what I’m doing. People wouldn’t hire me if I wasn’t good at what I do.” I was always affirming myself and keeping my feet on the ground. Luckily, I had a great mom and dad who really instilled in me a sense of self. And what Sydney was saying, I’d have to block out the noise so I can put my head on the pillow at night and go, “I did good today. I was a good person. I was kind to people. I worked really hard. I’m a good mom.” That has always helped me through.
Thompson: Not having your sense of self or identity entangled in this other self that belongs to the public seems like such a healthy thing. I’m still trying to figure out my balance with that. When I was acting in some projects, I felt like I was delivering a lump of clay that got sculpted by somebody else. So if someone was harsh on the final [product], I was like, “Well, I didn’t sculpt it. I’m just the material.” But now that I produce, it’s a completely different thing. It’s building it from the ground up and feeling so much responsibility to the people that you’ve made it with. You made a baby and sent it into the world, and you just hope it doesn’t get misunderstood.
Gwyneth, you’re stepping back into the film world with “Marty Supreme” after seven years doing other things, such as Goop. Were you nervous coming back into the fold?
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Paltrow: I [had been] doing things like “Iron Man” and “The Avengers,” which are totally fun, but it’s like doing a TV show where you go back in and you know the character. It’s not that difficult. So it had been a really long time, and I was like, “How did I used to do this? How are you, like, natural?” And then I did the camera test and I was really nervous. I felt like a fish out of water. And then luckily the first scene that I shot for real was a scene in the movie where she’s rehearsing a play. And I started in the theater, and I did a million plays before I ever did a film. The camera was far away, and I had my mom’s voice in my head. She’s like, “You’re on the boards, you know, just let the energy come through your body.”
Can wardrobe and styling help you embody the emotional core of a role?
Blunt: Dawn’s got a vibe for sure. It was that very overt ’90s, overglamorized thing, and everything was so revealing. I feel like my t— looked like two heads by the time they were done with the Wonderbra. They were just up under my chin. That helps you stand different, walk different. And the nails helped me. She had this incredibly long, square, chunky French tip manicure, and she’d talk with her hands. And the spray tan and the wig. It’s all fabulous. It’s such an amazing thing to look at yourself and go, “Who’s that?”
Thompson: [In “Hedda”], the construction of those dresses in the ’50s, there’s so much boning. We had Lindsay Pugh, who’s a brilliant costume designer. I also started looking up the starlets of the time and what their waist sizes were. It was like 20 or 21 inches. They were extreme. In the beginning, when we were constructing the dress, I was like, “I’m going to try to get down to that Dior-like silhouette,” which is impossible. Then we [fell in] love with the idea that the dress doesn’t actually fit her, because she’s inside of a life that doesn’t fit her. But the sheer sort of circumference of the dress makes her a woman who comes into a room and takes up space. A big part of [a woman’s] currency was their beauty and their body. That felt very foreign to me to inhabit. I didn’t recognize or had maybe suppressed the idea of using that part of me to gain power in the world.
The 2025 Envelope Oscar Actresses Roundtable: Top row, left to right, Tessa Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow and Elle Fanning. Bottom row, left to right, Sydney Sweeney, Jennifer Lopez and Emily Blunt.
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Hollywood likes to put people in boxes, particularly women. What boxes has it tried to stuff you in?
Fanning: I was in “Maleficent” and I played Sleeping Beauty, so like Disney princess in pink. Blond.
Blunt: But look at that face. Come on!
Fanning: But I can be mean too! In “The Great,” [I played] Catherine the Great, she was a queen, but she was raunchy. It was such a delicious show in that way. People were like, “Whoa.” They were surprised [seeing me like] that.
Blunt: If there’s a movie that takes off, you will have to carve out space away from that. I remember after “The Devil Wears Prada,” I got offered every acerbic British bitch. I’m like, “I should not do that for a while.”
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Paltrow: When I stepped back to be an entrepreneur around 2008, I really confused and upset people. Nobody understood what I was doing, and I faced a lot of criticism and confusion over the course of the 17 years since I sent out my first Goop newsletter. I really do think that women, we are so incredibly multifaceted. We are all the archetypes. We’re not just a mother, or an artist, or an intellectual. We’re all the things. So I’ve always kind of tried to make it my mission to say, like, “No, don’t put us in boxes. We get to define who we are.”
Blunt: Was it hard for you to keep going and ignore it?
Paltrow: It was really hard. Some days I was like, “Why did I do this? The headwinds are so extreme and I’m so misunderstood. I had a perfectly good job. People did my hair. Why on earth did I do this to myself?”
Thompson: And you also did it before there was a cultural appreciation for people doing multihyphenates and starting businesses.
Lopez: I think our generation started thinking, like, “We need and want to do other things.” Even when I started acting and I had done my early films, “Out of Sight” and “Selena,” and then decided I wanted to record music, and it was such a big deal. People were like, “They’re never going take you seriously as an actor ever again.”
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Paltrow: And you had the No. 1 movie and the No. 1 album in the same time, right?
Lopez: It was in the Guinness Book of Records. But that’s the thing, everybody’s always trying to tell you: “You can only do this,” or “You can only do that.” I had my perfume line. I had my clothing lines. I have my J Lo beauty now. You have to just do what feels good for you. It doesn’t mean it’s for everybody. Somebody wants to just act their whole life, that’s beautiful too. That’s fantastic. I still want to direct. I still want to write more books. And I don’t ever feel like there’s somebody who can say to me, “No, you can’t.”
Blunt: Say that to Sydney and she’ll break their nose.
In a roundabout way, the fact that I don’t have a strong attachment to The Wizard of Oz as a film (my late mother loved it, so that memory is deeply rooted in me, but the movie itself never did much for me) contributed directly to how amusing I found Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass to be. This comedy spoofs the plot of the classic fantasy movie, though the jokes are largely about Hollywood. The humor is big and broad, with some of the jokes really landing. Others? Not so much. Still, more than enough do to warrant a recommendation.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass gets a lot of mileage out of sending up show business, even if the observations, while funny, are not particularly new. Besides the deluge of jokes, there’s also a lot of likably broad characters to spend time with, especially our lead. They make the 90 minutes and change spent together with them go down very easy.
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For Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch), her life as a small town hairdresser is perfect. Engaged to her high school sweetheart Tom (Michael Cassidy), she’s the picture of happiness, at least until a trip to a celebrity book signing. There, Tom meets and ends up sleeping with his “celebrity pass,” a term Gail wasn’t even really previously aware of. Feeling betrayed, Gail impulsively joins her co-worker and friend Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley) on a trip to Los Angeles. There, a psychic convinces her that the can save her marriage by sleeping with her own celebrity pass: Jon Hamm (Jon Hamm).
Journeying through Tinseltown in a manner that recalls Dorothy’s adventure in Oz, Gail and Otto won’t have to find Hamm alone. Joining forces with talent agency assistant Caleb (Ben Wang), down on his luck paparazzo Vincent (Ken Marino), and actor John Slattery (John Slattery). As they search for Hamm, some for their own purposes, they meet other celebrities, while also being hunted by a group of Italian assassins after a case of mistaken identity. Eventually, they come across Hamm, and the moment of truth is at hand.
Sony Pictures Classics
Zoey Deutch dives headfirst into a broad comedy like this, absolutely relishing the opportunity to get silly again. She’s able to make Gail a babe in the woods but also someone you laugh with, not at. It’s a wildly enjoyable turn. Deutch started out in comedies and was always a talented comedic actress, so it’s a pleasure to watch her back at it. Miles Gutierrez-Riley and Ben Wang get some very funny moments, while Ken Marino is a reliable comic presence. Jon Hamm and John Slattery are delighted to be sending up themselves, with amusing results. Supporting players here, in addition to Michael Cassidy, also include Kerri Kenney, Richard Kind, Thomas Lennon, Joe Lo Truglio, Fred Melamed, and more, plus some cameos.
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Filmmaker David Wain, again co-writing with Ken Marino, continues to make it look easy. Few can make a silly comedy like Marino and Wain, especially as they pack their flicks with extra bits that only subsequent viewings reveal. Is Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass on the same level as Wet Hot American Summer or They Came Together? No, not quite. At the same time, is this, scattershot approach and all, funnier than most other 2026 releases? You bet. Marino and Wain have a hit rate that allows some of the jokes to miss, as you only have seconds to wait before the next one, which probably will hit.
Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass is very amusing, and occasionally hilarious, even if not as many jokes land as you might expect. Zoey Deutch is great in the lead role, David Wain is in his comfort zone, and the laughs come hot and heavy. If you’re a Wain fan, this new movie should be a must see.
Right now in Los Angeles it’s Wes Week, with multiple tributes to the career of filmmaker Wes Anderson, known for his fastidious visual style, melancholy longing and nerd-chic aesthetic.
On Monday night there was a sold-out 30th anniversary screening of Anderson’s debut feature, “Bottle Rocket,” at the Academy Museum with the filmmaker making a rare in-person L.A. appearance. He sat for a warmly endearing Q&A with actor Luke Wilson and director James L. Brooks, an early champion who executive-produced.
Then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the Hollywood Bowl will have three nights celebrating the music of Anderson’s films, hosted by the director’s 10-time fixture, Bill Murray. Among those scheduled to perform are Beck, Jenny Lewis, Karen O, Rufus Wainwright and Devo, among many more. Other surprise guests may appear as well, performing songs familiar from Anderson’s music-stuffed movies.
“I was surprised how many things we did have to leave out,” Anderson, 57, tells The Times in a recent interview conducted via voice notes (his personal preference) recorded from Paris, where he has long lived. “There’s so much music over all these movies because I’ve been doing them for so long. We could do a whole other round of this, but let’s see how it goes on this first one.”
Because of his unique use of music, combining left-field vintage pop songs with classical pieces and original scores by favored composers Alexandre Desplat and Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, there have been frequent requests over the years for live performances, but Anderson and his longtime music supervisor Randall Poster have always declined — up until now and this ambitious three-night event at the Bowl.
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“From the moment that he said yes we’ve been on the phone talking about his vision and how to execute it,” says Johanna Rees, vice president of programming and creative partnerships at the L.A. Phil, during a recent call from San Diego. “It’s about exploring and celebrating so many styles of music. It’s been such a fun adventure.”
Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman in Wes Anderson’s 2012 movie “Moonrise Kingdom.”
(Focus Features)
This will be more than a typical evening at the Bowl, with dedicated Anderson-branded merchandise and uniformed bicycle riders dispensing candy. “The plan is you walk into the Hollywood Bowl and you are immersed in the world of Wes Anderson,” Rees says.
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Criterion, which has long put out high-end home video editions of Anderson’s work and recently issued a 20-disc box set, will also have a special presence at the Bowl. Alongside the popular Criterion Mobile Closet making another stop in L.A., there will also be a lounge, a listening booth and a screening room showing Anderson’s movies as well as ones curated by him, including “Yojimbo,” “Amarcord” and “Belle de Jour.”
“Wes is an amazing community-builder as a human being,” said Peter Becker, president of Criterion, in a video call from the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna, Italy. “If you look at his films and the people he’s been working with consistently, we’re not the only ones who’ve been part of the greater Wes Anderson family for the last 25-plus years. How could we not be a part of this?”
From left, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody and Owen Wilson in the movie “The Darjeeling Limited.”
(Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Music supervisor Poster met Anderson in 1996 at L.A.’s Original Farmers Market shortly after “Bottle Rocket” was finished and immediately began to assist in pulling together the soundtrack release. Though the CD at the time could not include some of the key songs from the movie, these Bowl events will finally offer a flexi-disc of the Rolling Stones’ “2000 Man” as well as a limited-edition yellow vinyl 12-inch record with two songs by the band Love.
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The two have worked together on all of Anderson’s films since, with a process that is constantly developing.
“Sometimes we’ve been talking about it even before the film takes shape,” says Poster on a recent phone call from New York. “We get to that point where I feel informed to a certain degree, that we’ve identified an element or two, whether it’s a composer, a specific song, a specific band that allows us to sort of start weaving it together. Sometimes we have more details, and sometimes we’re in a little bit more of a process of discovery.”
As impeccably detailed as his movies can be, Anderson acknowledges that his method can still be a bit vague. “I really couldn’t tell you what it’s all about, where it came from or why,” he says. “It’s just totally instinctive.”
One of the most indelible moments in Anderson’s repertoire is Gwyneth Paltrow’s slow-motion exit from a bus in “The Royal Tenenbaums” to the sounds of Nico’s 1967 recording of the song “These Days,” perfectly capturing a tender, delicate rush of emotions.
“That music was part of the inspiration for the entire movie,” Anderson recalls. “There’s a Ravel string quartet in F Major and this song — those two things together, for whatever reason, suggested something to me that slowly became the whole movie. With Gwyneth Paltrow coming off of the bus, we played the music on the set. It was all a bit choreographed to that.”
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“Everybody wanted to do ‘These Days,’ ” says Poster of the artists lined up for this weekend’s shows. “But Jackson Brown wrote ‘These Days’ and Jackson Brown is going to perform ‘These Days.’ Nobody could really argue with that one.” (The rest of the song choices and performers are being kept under wraps.)
Ben Stiller, left, Gwyneth Paltrow and Gene Hackman in the 2001 movie “The Royal Tenenbaums.”
(James Hamilton / Touchstone Pictures)
In choosing music for the movies, inspiration can strike from just about anywhere, as with the Johnny Duncan and the Blue Grass Boys’ recording of “Last Train From San Fernando,” memorable from the opening credits of 2023’s “Asteroid City.”
“I knew that song because my daughter used to listen to it,” says Anderson. “She had a CD of western swing from the ’50s and ’40s that she was listening to again and again. So I stole it from her.”
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Poster mentions Anderson’s affinity for woodwinds and novelty instruments along with his tremendous sense of rhythm, which is why the music often has a strong percussive feel, from Gene Krupa’s “Drum Boogie” in last year’s “The Phoenician Scheme” to Japanese taiko drums and the work of composer Peter Jarvis.
“I would say that I think the biggest change is that Wes has taught himself how to read music,” says Poster. “He just really gets into the score’s DNA and really has a great insight into how to arrange thematic pieces that I think help make the movies more wholesome, just being a whole thing.”
Poster playfully refers to Anderson as “The Maestro” and remains struck by how fresh the music cues feel in the context of the films.
“When those clips come on — ‘Here Comes My Baby,’ ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away,’ ‘These Days,’ ‘Needle in the Hay,’ ‘Ooh La La’ — I mean, countless, countless, I always get a kick out of it.”
All of which should add up to a special alchemy at the Bowl.
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“They won’t happen again,” says Rees of the three nights curated by Anderson. “Not knowing what he’s going to do in the future, but certainly this is a special event, a one-of-a-kind weekend. It won’t be happening like this again.”
For Anderson, putting together the Hollywood Bowl shows has been a reminder of how far his work has evolved.
“When we made ‘Bottle Rocket,’ I didn’t intend to have an original score at all,” he remembers. “We had some Ennio Morricone music. We put Bob Dylan’s ‘Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid’ in the movie originally — and that’s a score from somebody else’s movie. At a certain point everything sort of changed, and Mark Mothersbaugh came and saw the movie and he liked everything we had in there. And so he brought his own voice in, but from the point of view of somebody who was very sympathetic to what was already in place, and that led to more movies together.”
Showing a bit of his own trademark wistfulness, he adds, “It is quite an amazing thing to have Mark and Devo coming up on the stage to do this music that reflects back on all these years — this whole gathering.”
Supergirl Director: Craig Gillespie DC Studios, Troll Court Entertainment, The Sagan Company In theaters: 06.26.2026
I was a pretty big fan of James Gunn’s Superman. Building up to the release of the film, I relapsed into my comic book obsession, which I had laid to rest many years prior. I read whatever you get recommended when you look up “Superman comic recommendations:” For All Seasons, All Star, Birthright — whatever, you don’t care. David Corenswet’sportrayal of Big Blue was loving, thorough and unbelievably human, which is what Superman is (he’s not Jesus). He is the best of us. He is what we aspire to be.
Supergirl was announced, and I picked up the comic it was based on: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The questionable morals and talent of author Tom King aside, the book is good! The fantastic art by Bilquis Evely makes King’s (sometimes preachy) prose this beautiful and somber story about trauma and war. It appears that I’m ahead of director Craig Gillespie, who reportedly didn’t read the book and, boy, does it show.
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During a bender, Superman’s cousin Kara (Milly Alcock, House of The Dragon)meets Ruthye (Eve Ridley), a child whose family is murdered by Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts, Amsterdam, The Old Guard), the leader of a raider group. She enlists Kara to hunt and kill him, and on their way, they confront their traumas.Kara faces Krem, the films antagonist, retold as an all-powerful kryptonite wielding brute. Photo courtesy: DC Studios.
Every change made from the original comic was for the worse. Most notably, this film simplifies the depth of the comic’s characters. Kara is reduced to a loud, charming alcoholic, which is fine, but in the comic, she’s somber and reflective, making an effort to teach Ruthye how the greater universe works. The antagonist, Krem, is sort of a loser in the comic. He’s a coward who spends his time running away, while in the film he’s a tattooed, pierced, menacing psychopath who appears in almost every major action sequence. He’s almost indistinguishable from The Joker — this all boils down to shame. While they’re becoming increasingly popular, comics are still for losers. Hinting at depth with characters who fly and shoot lasers from their eyes in brightly colored underpants isn’t something that a general audience will accept. They will accept a comic film so long as it constantly flogs itself for being comic-inspired.
Another bastardization is the look of this film. Everly’s amazing use of color in the comic makes the story so engaging. How is this translated? Brown. Just brown. When characters clash, it looks like someone’s wiping their finger across their dirt-covered lens, which is a total departure from Gunn’s fantastic color palette in Superman. The visual effects appear to be rushed and often look horrible — laughably horrible, as a matter of fact. How do you spot a bad action director? Look at the editing. If they have to hide poor action choreography and bad visual effects behind dizzying amounts of cuts, they’re bad. Gillespie is a bad action director. James Gunn promised that the DCU would prioritize artist voice over universal coherence, but if these are the artists he’s hiring, I’m not sure how long this could last.
Performances here are whatever. Alcock could have been good if the script and direction were right, but they’re not. I couldn’t get into Krem due to character assassination, but even if I wasn’t into the comic, I would find his performance as a crazy guy to be a standard for bad superhero movies. Ridley is good, especially for a debut in feature films, but the standout is Jason Momoa (Aquaman, A Minecraft Movie) as Lobo. He is loving the character, absolutely chewing up the scene with thick cigars. He’s a little cheesy-edgy, but that’s just what he is in the comics, so I won’t knock him for it.
While I was watching the film, I was suffering from a discrepancy. Supergirl is as powerful as Superman, but throughout this film, she doesn’t use her powers to their full potential. Something I actually loved about Superman is how much he got his ass kicked. Gunn was out to prove that Superman fights can have stakes — that he’s not just undefeatable and therefore boring as everyone says. Gunn’s ability to create ways to kill the Man of Steel without Kryptonite is amazing! Kara, in this film, is fighting space pirates and constantly forgets to finish the fight. It’s frustrating because the remedy to this in the comic is that they don’t see Krem until the last couple of issues, but in this film, Krem keeps showing up to menace Supergirl, and most of the time she has her powers.
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I could ramble about how bad the dialogue can be, how derivative and uninspired it is or whatever lame comic thing I can talk about, but I’ll spare you. Here’s the moral of all this: Comic books are a valid storytelling medium. I recall recommending Alan Moore’sWatchmen to someone and being told that they have more important things to read. Watchmen is one of my favorite works of fiction. I did end up falling out of love with comics because I was told they were childish and I had grown bored of having costumes thrust into my peripherals all the time, but I’m back now, and I love them so much more than ever. I loved Superman because, above all else, it was earnest. There wasn’t a self-deprecatory tone toward its own plot. It didn’t try to bog its drama down with one-liners. It was just proud to be a comic book movie, and I think more movies should.
If you want to see Supergirl, go ahead, but I’d advise you to just read the comic, which is more dramatic, more meaningful and more impactful. —B. Allan Johnson
Read more reviews from B. Allan Johnson below: Film Review: The Bride! Film Review: Backrooms
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Sony Pictures Classics
Sony Pictures Classics
