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In 1984 Supergirl was released in theatres; the Superman spin-off that wasn't universally loved but may prove to be an important entry in the history of movies anyway. On the occasion of the movie's 25th anniversary and Supergirl's 50th anniversary as a character, Planet Origo spoke to Supergirl herself, Helen Slater, on topics ranging from being a debutant, to why the movie didn't work and her plans for a Supergirl comic book.
Helen Slater's feature film debut was nothing less than the most super girl of them all.
- The blonde that I was in Supergirl was a bottle job, I was really bleached blonde, and I still highlight my hair, Helen Slater says.
Helen Slater played Superman's mother Lara in two 2007 episodes of Smallville.
Always lovely, Helen Slater somewhere in the world in 2008.
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After a brief stint on TV in 1982, Supergirl (1984) was Helen Slater's major debut as the titular super hero whose cousin Superman had left Earth and thus made space for someone else to save the world. Supergirl was at that time not just another super hero movie, as the genre had just been born and Superman was one of the hottest properties on the big screen and in comic books. To follow in the footsteps of a major international franchise which was based on the most iconic fictional hero of all times was quite a project the young Helen Slater.
Helen Rachel Slater was born in Massapequa, New York, the daughter of a lawyer and a television executive. She graduated from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in 1982 and has since appeared in movies, TV series, L'Oréal commercials, and on stage. In 2003 she embarked on a singer-songwriter career and has released two CDs of her own music, while continuing to take guest roles on TV series such as Crossing Jordan, Grey's Anatomy and Law & Order.
On the occasion of Supergirl's 25th anniversary, and also the 50th anniversary of Supergirl as a character (she was created for comic books in 1959) Planet Origo spoke to Helen Slater / Supergirl exclusively. We wanted to know as much as possible about her Supergirl experience, and also touched on her stint as Lara in the TV series Smallville, where she re-connected with the Superman universe.
Planet Origo: Before you got cast as Supergirl, how familiar were you with the Superman universe?
Helen Slater: Honestly, I was a huge fan of the movie, and I think the first two movies were already out when I got cast as Supergirl, but I didn't know the mythology of the comic books, and that was not part of my upbringing or childhood.
Planet Origo: Did you meet Christopher Reeve during preparations or filming, to talk about your character or the Super universe?
Helen: I met him at the studios when I was shooting, and I didn't really confer with him, but it was very fun meeting him, a highlight for me.
To get the role, Slater had to compete against other young up-and-coming actresses, such as Demi Moore and Brooke Shields, but what director Jeannot Szwarc wanted was a person who was athletic but without big muscles, and who knew ballet and could be graceful. How did Slater meet those criteria?
Helen: I had attended performing arts classes in high scool, and we had to take [extra] dance classes. I never did sports per se, but I had done dance classes and that fitted Jeannot's idea of what he wanted in [a female lead].
In her first audition for the role, Slater wanted to impress the casting director and improvised a cape, a skirt and boots.
Helen: I don't know if I was impressing the casting director, but I really went for it.
Supergirl was not only part of a popular and iconic franchise, but also Helen Slater's first movie, and as she was 19 when they started working on the movie, one would think such a large debut project would be intimidating. However, she does not remember it was scary at all, and felt well taken care of:
Helen: You know, when you're 19 - I turned 19 when we started shooting - you're so puffed up that you're not thinking about that as much. For me what was intimidating was Peter O'Toole, [the fact] that he was in the movie, but I felt very protected by the Salkinds (the producers), by the people they had hired to train me, the friends I made during the 3 - 4 month training period, so I felt I was almost in a bubble and wasn't really exposed to anything, not [even] any kind of publicity. I was very protected and in that way I really felt safe. Looking back at it I realize how daunting it was, what a daunting experrience [it must have been].
Adding to the sheer size of the movie and its ties to popular culture was the fact that some major names were to be seen on screen; Mia Farrow played Kara / Supergirl's mother, Faye Dunaway played the witch Selena, and Peter O'Toole was Zaltar, a Marlon Brando-esque character on Supergirl's home planet. How were those veteran actors to work with?
Helen: Oh, that was such a great experience for me, that whole spectrum. Peter I still think of as this incredible mentor. I don't know if you [know] this, but he would have me do Shakespeare for him, and kind of helped me get rid of some of my American habits, which I still do to this day. He said to me; 'I want you to imagine holding a daffodil between your thumb and your forefinger' while I was doing a speech from Romeo and Juliet, and very much gave me this incredible light into doing Shakespeare, which I hadn't started performing. I've had great teachers since Supergirl [too], about getting more insight into how to work with text.
Helen: And then with Faye, for me it was her professionalism... I was very aware of how an extraordinary beautiful woman she is. She was very mindful of the way she was lit, because there was that kind of self-protection on her part that I think was good. I think she was very helpful [to me].
Planet Origo: What kind of training did you receive?
Helen: [I received] extensive training once I got to England, it was 3 or 4 months of training with Alf Joint (the stunt coordinator and trainer), who passed away 3 or 4 eyars ago. He trained Christopher as well. It was the trampoline and running, swimming, weightlifting, sit-ups... So it was alot of training, I think I gained several pounds!
Planet Origo: The aerial ballet scene looks particularly great in the film. Was it achieved with wires, and how was it to shoot?
Helen: That was such great fun and one of the highlights of the movie for me. It was done with wires back then, [the technique of achieving it] looks really archaic now. I don't know how they do it today, but when I did in the 80s they had a long-nose construction crane, and then they attached two piano wires to a track that went across a frame, and then two guys had a rope on a makeshift wheel, and when they pulled the wire I would go up, and two other guys had another wheel [and when they pulled their wire] I would go across the frame, so that's how they made me fly.
Before the advent of CGI, scenes like the aerial ballet and any other action or stunt scene involved physical work, so much that Christopher Reeve, who played Superman in four movies, declared he would never play Superman again, unless they found new and more comfortable ways to make him fly. What was the hardest part for Helen, we asked.
Helen: There was another way they made me fly, and that was this arm that came out of a green screen, and they had made a body cast of my whole body. I would say that [the body cast] was the most challenging, but nothing too dire [laughs].
The movie now exists in several different versions, from the longest 138 minute Director's Cut via the 124 minute international theatrical version, to the 105 minute US theatrical version. These cuts and changes did not only affect the acting performances of Slater and Dunaway, but also the story and thus the movie's reception among critics and audiences.
Helen: I don't know much about that. I've had some real interesting talks about why the film didn't work and what the problem was, and I think it was more to do with the story of Supergirl, [in that] that it wasn't developed and it was a girl as opposed to a guy. Perhaps they didn't know back then how to make that storyline [work]. It would be interesting to see how they would have made it today.
Planet Origo: What is your fondest memory from the making of the film?
Helen: I have so many fond memries. Jeannot Szwarc, the director, was so much fun to work with, and Peter and Faye and all of those people [too], but my fondest memory, because it was such a coming of age [project] for me, was working in England and at Pinewood Studios, and being plucked out of obscurity and put into this experience. I felt it was a dream come true.
Obviosuly, there was talk about a sequel, but as Supergirl did not do too well, plans were put on ice. Helen, however, was nominated for a Saturn Award for her performance by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, and there is also one other legacy she owes to her break-out role; before she starred in Supergirl, Helen's hair was dark.
Helen: The blonde that I was in Supergirl was a bottle job, I was really bleached blonde, and I still highlight my hair!
Planet Origo: Today, comic book heroes are often transferred to film but that was rare in the 1980s, and you are in a way part of movie history for that, especially as a female superhero. Was it a good way to start a career?
Helen: I don't have anything to compare it with, but it did not stop me, because I went on to do some really fun films like The secret of my success and Ruthless People, so in no way was it a hinderance. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that it didn't do so well because it didn't stop me from doing other things, [and I wasn't pigeonholed].
Helen's career was indeed not hindered from starting with Supergirl. Apart from several dramas and comedies, she has also been in the animated Adventures of Batman & Robin, the time-travel TV series 12:01, National Lampoon's American Adventure, Supernatural, Eleventh Hour and of course Smallville, the long-running TV series about Superman's younger years. Helen Slater played Lara, Clark Kent / Superman's biological mother in two episodes.
Helen: They offered me that part and I had so much fun doing it, they are just wonderful peple over there. They tip their hat alot to the movies that were made, by bringing in actors or voices, so for people who love the Supergirl comics or Superman comic books, it was fun to be that surprise in that I was playing Superman's biological mother.
Another Supergirl connection is the fact that Marc McClure, who played Jimmy Olsen in Slater's movie, was also in Smallville as a guest actor. He is the only actor to have been in both Supergirl and all of Reeve's Superman movies. While it would have been fun to have met him and talked about the old days, Helen says, they never got the chance to work together on the Warner Bros. TV show. And would she consider returning to the series if they asked her?
Helen: Yes... They did blow me up in a trillion pieces, but as someone was saying to me, that means nothing if you're in science fiction show [laughs hearty].
Many years after doing Supergirl, in 2007, Helen were in talks with comic book creator Jake Black about creating a new Supergirl comic book series. They even pitched the idea to DC Comics, the publisher who owns the Supergirl character. A change in the creative team at DC prevented further negotiations, but Helen is optimistic:
Helen: We had the most interesting talks. I went to Metropolis in Illinois, to a Superman convention, or was it a festival? When I was there there was a bunch of comic books artists and I went to a dinner, and Jake Black was there, and we started talking about the mythology of which I'm a huge fan, and about what is going on for young girls of today, and what a Supergirl story might look like. I had a great time working on that [idea], but... it might not be totally dead, it may come back, you never know.
Planet Origo: Is there any particular incident or situation you remember more than anything else from your 25 year old involvement with the Super universe?
Helen: I was very moved when I met Laura Vandervoort, who plays Supergirl on Smallville, because she was my age when I played Supergirl, and that was a little bit of a shock. She might have been one or two years older, but I almost felt like seeing myself 25 years ago, and walking on the set I had that really odd feeling watching her. She was so poised and lovely, and I had a kind of... not eerie [feeling], but I was thinking 'wow, that was me 20-something years ago'. That whole young ingénue thing, it just had a certain energy to it, and I remmeber I thought about being aware of the difference [between then and now] and how pure that age is. It's beautiful and unusual because it is not who I am now, I've grown and got married, had a child and travelled and read books, so it felt like a Star Trek episode where you go back in time in your life, and see yourself.
Going back to Supergirl we wanted to ask Helen what would be a good reason for someone to get the DVD and see the movie, even though it's 25 years old.
Helen (ponders): Oh, that's interesting... I think you are right though, [about the] film history context. I think it can be seen as an interesting foray, like, the first female super hero foray into film, so you might be right about that. I can't think of what was before Supergirl, so in terms of tracking movie and cinema and how films figure [female heroes] out, from a film historian point of view, it is interesting to clock it and look at it, and fast-forward 25 years and see how far it has come, not just the technical side but the female characters that they have brought [into] movies the last couple of years. I think it would be interesting for people who study film or mythology or even art or psychology to see how [female heroes] have progressed in our culture.
Planet Origo: Helen, thanks for the time you have given us!
Helen: Thank you, it was really enjoyable!
Supergirl was supposed to be released in the summer of 1984 and thus celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer. Studio politics delayed the movie, however, which eventually got released in November 1984. The DVD is available from Planet Origo's movie shop.
By following the links and thumbnails below this interview, you will find other Superman-universe related articles and reviews.
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