When Milly Alcock’s Supergirl crash lands in movie theaters on June 26, 2026, she’ll only be the 5th actress to play a live-action version of DC’s Kara Zor-El. So far, we’ve had Helen Slater in the 1984 film, Laura Vandervoort in Smallville, Melissa Benoist in the Arrowverse, and Sasha Calle in The Flash. But before Melissa Benoist spent six seasons playing the character for The CW, she stood in an audition room and was convinced she had already lost the role to an actress from The Vampire Diaries. The other actress was Claire Holt.
Most people know Holt as Rebekah Mikaelson across The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, where she’s proved her acting chops again and again. That explains why Benoist didn’t feel confident going up against her for the role of Supergirl in The CW franchise. During an interview with 5 Things with Jay Mewes, she confirmed that it was just the two of them in the final round. “It was me versus someone else. You know who it was?” she asked Mewes. And before he could guess, she answered: “Claire Holt!”
“Really beautiful blonde girl. She’s awesome, she’s great. And it was her and I, and I was like, there’s no way,” Benoist continued.
But even hearing her talk about it now, after all these years, you can tell just how much Benoist wanted the role and how much it meant to her. She brought a lot of weight to the character over the years, making it her own.
Supergirl premiered on CBS in October 2015, and, as she points out in the interview, was actually the first female-led superhero series on television since Lynda Carter’s Wonder Woman ended in 1979. That is a 36-year gap between female superhero leads on TV.
Benoist, who was just 26 at the time of the casting, understood the importance of the role right away. “This is going to be like a chance to play something iconic,” she said. “And I really wanted to put my spin on it, which was like a little more quirky.”
That quirkiness was exactly why she was the right pick and what separates her from other takes on the character. It’s not there with Slater, Vandervoort, Calle or even Alcock’s new version. Benoist’s version is warmer and more down-to-earth. She stumbles and has this overcommitted earnestness that’s absent from all the others. And best of all, it genuinely doesn’t feel forced. It’s probably a reflection of who Benoist is in real life. Her Supergirl was someone who genuinely wanted to be good, and you believed her every time.
From what we’ve seen in trailers and read in interviews, Milly Alcock’s take is completely different. Her character is jaded and is heartbroken after Krypton is destroyed. As a result, she sulks, drinks a lot and parties hard. Basically, the opposite of The CW’s version.
Claire Holt, for her part, handled losing the role to Benoist with a grace that is genuinely rare. When the 5 Things video surfaced on Instagram, she responded directly under the post: “You were the perfect Supergirl @melissabenoist !!!!”
Benoist carried the role from 2015 to 2021 across six seasons, landing an 88 percent Rotten Tomatoes score across the full run. Years later, when asked what she would tell the next Supergirl, she went straight to audience rather than craft. “I think what always drove me while working on that show was the audience and who I knew I was making the show for,” she said. “The people that I was making that show for while we were making it were young women, and if I kept that in the forefront of my mind, it always made everything palatable.”
Alcock’s version of Kara in the DCU is drawn from Tom King’s graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. It’s a new era with a different actress, a different take and a different audience. We’ll soon find out whether or not she’ll manage to live up to the stars who wore the red boots before her. For now, Benoist probably has the most unique take on the character yet. And to think, Holt nearly beat her to it.
RELATED: Before Milly Alcock, Zack Snyder Had a Wildly Different Supergirl Planned — and DC Scrapped Her
