Getting a set visit to an active production is one of the coolest privileges and I was lucky enough to visit on behalf of Black Girl Nerds to check out Supergirl early last year. With the film just days from wrapping, it felt like catching something rare unfolding in real time. Over the course of our time at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, we moved through the costume department, the props floor, a super in depth war room covered wall-to-wall in concept art, and eventually onto a stage where Krypton had been built from scratch. There was so much to take in so here are ten things that stood out.
1. KARA DOESN’T PUT THE SUIT ON UNTIL THE END AND THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT
Producer Chantal Nong was direct about this: the super suit arriving at the end of the film is entirely intentional. Kara is on break from Earth at the start of the story. Off-planet, she goes incognito. Director Craig Gillespie framed the whole film as a kind of coming-into-self story rather than a conventional coming-of-age, but something more specific. Kara has been a hero, but not as her whole, true self. “The super suit is symbolic of that,” Nong said. “It’s her accepting who she is.”
2. THIS IS MILLY ALCOCK’S FIRST MOVIE
Nong mentioned it while Alcock wasn’t in the room, which felt important. “You would think it was her tenth.” The 24-year-old actress, best known for playing young Rhaenyra Targaryen in House of the Dragon, has reportedly been in 95 percent of the entire shoot, handling stunts, emotional scenes, and dialogue in multiple languages. Nong called watching Alcock inhabit the character for the first time one of her favorite moments of the whole production.
3. THE FILM’S TONE IS BALANCED IN A WAY THAT’S RARE FOR SUPERHERO MOVIES
Set production supervisor Sophie Scott described the tone as “really beautifully balanced” and Craig Gillespie brings a natural lightness to dark material. There’s real weight to the story like childhood trauma, grief, and a dying planet. But there’s also genuine humor, lots of improv, and a dash of visual comedy running through everything. “It’s an action movie,” Scott said, “but there’s real heart to Ruthye and Kara.”
4. KARA’S SPACE RV WAS INSPIRED BY LETHAL WEAPON
Production designer Neil Lamont used Riggs’s trailer at the beginning of Lethal Weapon as the reference point for the interior of Kara’s space vehicle. It’s free-spirited, a little messy, and the home of someone in their twenties who is very much living their best life in the galaxy. Krem steals it, which is how everything goes sideways, and why Kara and Ruthye end up riding public transit on what amounts to a space Greyhound bus. The wormhole bus, filled with aliens from across the galaxy, was described as the worst Greyhound you can imagine but make it intergalactic.
5. THE PRODUCTION BUILT A FULLY FUNCTIONING SPACE 7-ELEVEN
There’s a rest stop in the film that’s a neon, technicolor intergalactic convenience store where Kara picks up Ruthye’s pink spacesuit. Set decorator Lee Sandales (who just won the Oscar for Wicked) built it out so realistic that his team actually took a shopping trolley through the aisles after completion to make sure everything worked. That’s probably the wildest set story we heard all day.
6. THE FILM HAS OVER TWENTY SETS ACROSS FIVE SOUND STAGES AND A FULL BACK LOT
Sophie Scott said she’d honestly lost count. There’s a colonnade exterior on the back lot with actual lakes, a Brigands’ warship that towers over visitors, six full-size assault tanks (three of which actually drive on diesel and electric engines), a town square that takes up an entire stage, and hand-painted backdrop extensions instead of digital screens. The last detail is worth sitting with because, in an era where productions default to LED walls, this film went old school with painted scenery. Craig Gillespie wanted a real, physical world and, from what we saw, he definitely achieved that.
7. RUTHYE’S SWORD HAS AN AFGHAN FILIGREE INSPIRATION AND THERE ARE FIFTY OF THEM
Supervising hand props manager Charlie Horwood broke down the inspiration behind Ruthye’s signature weapon: the intricate golden detailing was drawn from the Afghani tradition of filigree metalwork. The shape itself came from the comic. Because young actress Eve Ridley couldn’t reasonably carry a heavy metal sword for ten-hour days, the team made lightweight versions alongside hero versions for close-ups. Total count: about 50 Ruthye swords made compared to the 500 Brigand weapons built with Viking and Celtic influences.
8. LOBO’S FAVORITE PROP IS A VAPE CIGAR MADE IN SIX HOURS
Charlie Horwood’s personal favorite prop on the entire film is Lobo‘s vape cigar. It was a last-minute request from Jason Momoa, who wanted something that would light up his face during a scene. Horwood’s team made it in roughly six hours. “It’s something that probably should exist but doesn’t,” he said. For the record, Momoa has already asked to keep several props from the production. He’s already gotten some of them and for Momoa fans, that tracks completely.
9. ON DAY 70 OF PRODUCTION, KRYPTON WAS STILL BEING BUILT
The day of our visit was day 70 of filming. The main unit was actively shooting Krypton flashback sequences, specifically the colonnaded interior scenes of Argo, the domed city that was Kara’s home as Krypton died. The afternoon’s shoot was set to move outside onto the back lot for the exterior colonnade with its lake, except the lake was now green with Kryptonite decay, because the painting team had been at work since Thursday. There were three weeks left in principal photography, with travel to Scotland and Iceland still on the schedule.
10. KARA’S STORY OFFICIALLY TAKES PLACE AFTER SUPERMAN
Producer Chantal Nong confirmed it plainly: Supergirl is set after James Gunn’s Superman. The DCU continuity is real, but each film has its own distinct visual and tonal identity. Kara is a different person from Clark Kent, something that’s evident in the film’s color palette, its humor, and the very way she moves through the world. As Nong put it: “You just see how different she is from Superman.” That difference, in the best possible way, is the whole movie.
Supergirl flies into theaters June 26th.
