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Volume 659
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Wednesday, October 20th, 2021
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Page 1 of 1
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This is from elle.com
Leslie Grace made her acting debut this summer as Nina Rosario in Lin-Manuel Miranda's big-screen version of In the Heights, which follows the sueñitos, or little dreams, of the Latinx community in
the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. For her second major film role, the 26-year-old Bronx-born actress is back in Gotham, this time as Barbara Gordon in Warner Bros. Pictures' Batgirl, slated
to premiere on HBO Max in 2022. While plot details are being kept under wraps, Grace exclusively revealed over Zoom that in the film Gordon becomes "her own hero."
Playing Gordon is the opportunity of a lifetime for Grace, who says she relates to her character's self-determination. "I can't believe Batgirl and I are in the same sentence," she says. "I'm so grateful
to everyone that has placed faith in my potential. I'm working very hard and studying very hard to not let anybody down."
Below, Grace, who is featured in ELLE's Women In Hollywood issue, talks about what she learned working with Lin-Manuel Miranda on In the Heights, and how she "manifested" her role in Batgirl.
On manifesting a role in Batgirl
I always loved the idea of superheroes, but I didn't grow up in a typical Dominican home reading comics or watching the animated series on TV. So now I'm doing all this research and nerding out learning
about parallel
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universes. It's funny, though-I have a best friend named Nadia, whom I've known for like 16 years. We met when my family moved to Florida and we lived in the same neighborhood. We've been like sisters
ever since. We always got into trouble as kids, so we started calling each other Batman and Robin. I had a black Jeep, so we called it the Grace-mobile. When Nadia found out that I got the role of Batgirl,
she was like "All this time, we've been manifesting this."
On connecting to the character of Barbara Gordon
I can't say much about what she is going to do, but Batgirl becomes her own hero. [Her origin story] is crazy dark, like a lot of other superheroes, but I like that she becomes Batgirl because she wants to
make a difference in the world. She feels like people underestimate her as Barbara Gordon, and I relate to that. I'm the youngest of my siblings and sometimes I still feel like a little kid inside. When I
really want to do something, and people underestimate me, I'm like, "Okay, I'm just going to do it and not say anything about it." It's that energy of being self-determined. You can't be afraid to be your
own hero, and I think girls need to see that.
Batman Movie Countdown
THE BATMAN
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