SUPERMAN Actress Isabela Merced Talks About Playing Hawkgirl and How Her Experience Differed From MADAME WEB

Isabela Merced has starred in a bunch of blockbusters and fun films and TV shows. Among her projects was the 2024 Sony flop, Madame Web, but she hasn’t let the brief slump get her down. Merced has jumped right back into the superhero universe with DC’s upcoming Superman, and she says the experience making this film has been completely different from her first foray into the genre.

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Merced described her time on set of Madame Web, explaining:

"I got a taste of the super suit [on Madame Web], which was not fun. The tightness and the way you had to make everything look cool, but also aggressive, but also smooth, but also in a tight suit, but also you're wearing a harness...It's a lot."

She went on to praise her experience making Superman, saying:

"We all were going through it together [on Superman]. We'd use fans on each other to make sure we weren't hot on the summer days where we'd be in harnesses in the middle of in Cleveland. Every scene I'm flying, pretty much. But it's cool because I'm an adrenaline seeker. I like being dropped from really high heights. It's actually one of my favorite things."

The cast of Superman includes David Corenswet as Superman, Nicholas Hoult as Lex, and Rachel Brosnahan as Lois, Skyler Gisondo as Clark’s best pal, Jimmy Olsen; Wendell Pierce as The Daily Planet’s Perry White; Milly Alcock as Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl; Isabela Merced as Kendra Saunders, aka Hawkgirl; and Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner.

It also stars Sean Gunn as Maxwell Lord; Edi Gathegi as Michael Holt, aka Mister Terrific; Maria Gabriela de Faria as Angela Spica, aka The Engineer; Sara Sampan as Eve Teschmacher; Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason, aka Metamorphosis; Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr.; Neva Howell as Martha Kent; and Pruitt Taylor Vince as Jonathan Kent.

Superman will launch the movie part of DC Studios’ Gods and Monsters: Part 1. It’s scheduled for a theatrical release on July 11, 2025.