Chyler Leigh had no idea that her character would be revealed to be gay and have a female love interest on the second season of “Supergirl.”
“I had no idea it was coming,” The CW actress told TheWrap’s Stuart Brazell. “[Showrunner] Andrew Kreisberg had talked to me a little bit about things for the next season … ‘We’re possibly thinking about maybe bringing in a romantic situation for Alex next season, as we’ll know more about her,’ and I was almost like, ‘no, don’t do that!’”
Leigh expressed reluctance for her character’s storlyine to shift away from her relationship with her sister Kara (Melissa Benoist), and revealed she only found out the revelation about her sexuality three weeks before shooting.
The rest is history, and the relationship between Leigh’s Alex Danvers and Detective Maggie Sawyer (Floriana Lima) has become a fan-favorite development lovingly referred to as a “Sanvers.”
From the outset, Leigh was concerned with how the portrayal would play out on screen.
“I was really concerned about how it was going to be approached,” she said. “I didn’t want it to be some ratings ploy. I wanted to make sure that if this was done, and we were doing something at this level, and this is a character now that’s on a comic book show — I know they’ve done it with ‘Arrow’ and there’s characters in the Arrowverse [that are LGBT] — but because this is such a female-driven show, I wanted to make sure it was done delicately.”
The actress also discussed how she and Lima tried to infuse naturalness into the relationship on screen.
“Even if it’s just, walking by and grabbing your arm, or I put my arm around you, I didn’t want it to be so [stilted or awkward],” she said. “It was like, ‘Look, how would you feel if I thought it would be cool if I was leaving, and I gave you a kiss real quick?’ and she would be like, ‘Yeah!’ Because it makes sense. It was those kind of things.”
“Supergirl” Season 2 wraps up Monday, May 22 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.