The New ‘Batwoman’ Is Javicia Leslie
Gotham City has a new Batwoman.
Two months after Ruby Rose announced she was leaving The CW’s Batwoman after just one season, and one month since word leaked that the show wasn’t looking to recast the role of Kate Kane and would instead introduce an entirely new character to take over the lead of the show, Warner Bros. has announced their new hero: Javicia Leslie will play the new Batwoman, Ryan Wilder, when the show returns for its second season on The CW.
Leslie, who previously appeared on God Friended Me and The Family Business, is the first Black actress to play Batwoman in a live-action film or television show. Here’s how the press release describes the new character. It definitely echoes what the earlier leaked casting call described:
Ryan Wilder is about to become Batwoman. She’s likable, messy, a little goofy and untamed. She’s also nothing like Kate Kane, the woman who wore the Batsuit before her. With no one in her life to keep her on track, Ryan spent years as a drug-runner, dodging the GCPD and masking her pain with bad habits. Today Ryan lives in her van with her plant. A girl who would steal milk for an alley cat and could also kill you with her bare hands, Ryan is the most dangerous type of fighter: highly skilled and wildly undisciplined. An out lesbian. Athletic. Raw. Passionate. Fallible. And very much not your stereotypical all-American hero.
Batwoman Season 2 premieres on The CW in January 2021. The show airs Sundays at 8PM ET.
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