‘Supergirl’ Actress Nicole Maines on Being TV’s First Transgender Superhero: ‘With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility’

With great power comes great responsibility. That’s what Nicole Maines has to say about being TV’s first transgender superhero, as the actress was just cast as Nia Nal (aka Dreamer) in the upcoming fourth season of “Supergirl.” “I haven’t really wrapped my head around it,” she told Variety at Comic-Con yesterday. “It feels fitting to say with great power comes great responsibility. I’m nervous because I want to do it right.”

Read More:‘Supergirl’ Makes History by Casting Nicole Maines as TV’s First Transgender Superhero

“We can be whoever we want, we can do whatever we want, we can be superheroes, because in many ways we are,” Maines added, “We’ve had trans representation in television for a while but it hasn’t been the right representation.”

She continued “I think we’re in a time right now where more than ever representation in the media matters. And what we see on television has a very dramatic effect on our society.”

Read More:‘Rub & Tug’: Don’t Let Scarlett Johansson Dropping Out Kill Hollywood’s First Trans Studio Film — Opinion

Maines also weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding “Rub and Tug,” a biopic about a transgender man that was set to star Scarlett Johansson before backlash to her casting led the actress to exit the project. “I think that cisgender actors don’t take roles out of malice, it’s just a failure to realize the context of having cisgender people play transgender characters,” Maines said.

“We don’t see the same issue with sexuality, we see straight people play gay all the time. With trans folks we have a lot of people accusing us of just playing dress-up for whatever reasons and that’s just not true. Having trans people play trans roles show that we are valid in our identities and we exist.”

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