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'Batwoman' wakes up and smells the flowers with first look at a brand new Poison Ivy
Kang is not playing Pamela Isley, but a new iteration of the botanical villain named Mary Hamilton.
Nicole Kang shows off her green thumb — and costume — as a new iteration of Poison Ivy ahead of the character's arrival in next week's Season 3 episode of Batwoman on The CW (the midseason finale is appropriately titled "Pick Your Poison").
"I'm really proud of how Poison Ivy came out," Kang, who plays Mary Hamilton, said during an interview with Entertainment Weekly. "What I'm most proud of is that it is rooted in history, both comic and fashion history. And it is culturally conscious. And then I am what's inside of it, what's filling it. And as a Korean girl, that's when it all came together."
She continued: ""Everybody, I think, has been wanting Mary to [become a superhero because there's] the expectation that everybody suits up and for us to subvert that expectation. We have a Black Batwoman, we have Batwing, and an Asian Poison Ivy — it's so cool. It's really exciting for me to create a fully fledged Asian villain. I think sometimes Asian villains are not explained, right? Their humanity is sometimes lost when in telling a story about a hero. And I think it's super brilliant. I give [showrunner] Caroline Dries all the props of creating a hero, and then turning her into a villain. I am very thrilled."
Check out her Venus Fly Trap chic below:
"I created this costume to reflect Mary's desire to be seen and heard by those closest to her, while maintaining her unique eye for fun and fanciful fashion; a strong shoulder and a corset to symbolize a trellis guiding her alter ego upwards," costume designer Maya Mani said in a statement to EW.
Ashley Young, head of the show's hair department, recalled how she and Kang "tried multiple wigs in different shades of red till we found the perfect one so that we didn't lose 'Mary' in all the glamour but could reflect her and bring out her Poison Ivy alter ego."
The first person to hold the mantle of Gotham's botanical villain, Pamela Isley, will make her Batwoman debut in the new year by way of Agent Carter's Bridget Regan.
"We do a combination of staying true to the Poison Ivy canon and what we normally do, which is put our own spin on it," Dries teased last month. "It’s a major story arc of the season, and we make it really, really hard on Batwoman."
New episodes of Batwoman air on The CW every Wednesday at 9 p.m. EST.
