Batgirl movie casts In the Heights star Leslie Grace in title role

Maureen Lee Lenker
·2 min read
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When the sun goes down, Leslie Grace will be putting on the batsuit.

The In The Heights star has been cast as Barbara Gordon, also known as Batgirl, in the forthcoming Batgirl film, Warner Bros. confirmed Wednesday.

Grace also shared the news herself on Twitter, saying she was "BEYOND EXCITED to embody Barbara Gordon" and "ready to give her all I've got!"

Batgirl has been around since the 1960s, and the most famous iteration of her remains Barbara Gordon, daughter of Gotham police commissioner, Jim Gordon. Batgirl was originally introduced in 1961 as Betty Kane, but the Gordon iteration came along in 1967 as the character was revamped for the Batman TV series. Yvonne Craig began playing the role in the third season of the Adam West-led series.

As previously announced, Bad Boys for Life directing duo Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are attached to direct Warner Bros.' long-gestating Batgirl movie. Bumblebee writer Christina Hodson (whose credits also include Birds of Prey and The Flash) is behind the script for the film, which is being planned as an HBO Max release.

Grace will be donning the bat ears on the heels of some legends, including Alicia Silverstone, who played the role in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, and Rosario Dawson, who voiced the character in The Lego Batman Movie. The HBO Max series Titans will be introducing its own Barbara Gordon in season 3.

Leslie Grace
Leslie Grace

Noam Galai/Getty Images

A Batgirl movie has been in the works for some time, with Joss Whedon initially announced as writer-director back in 2017. He left the project in 2018, citing an inability to crack the story. Author Roxane Gay then offered to write her own take on the character, but that never came to fruition.

Warner Bros. and Grace's reps did not immediately respond to EW's requests for comment.

Grace made her acting debut as Nina, local girl turned Stanford student, in In the Heights this summer. But she's better known in the music world, where she's received three Latin Grammy Award nominations.

"It got to the point that I wasn't having fun making music anymore," she previously told EW of her career. "This movie [In the Heights] saved my creativity. I knew that by having the opportunity to be part of this incredible story and this family of brilliant people that my life was going to change, and it has."

Add one more life-changing credit to the list.

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