After a promising Broadway musical career, Ciara Renee became a superhero. Well, at least now she plays one on TV, as Hawkgirl on Legends of Tomorrow. That sort of pedigree qualified her for a spot on Legends of Tomorrow’s time traveling Waverider.
Renee joined the cast for a Legends of Tomorrowpanel at WonderCon and we got to speak with her in a press roundtable. Renee teased future developments for Kendra and her departed Hawkman, Carter (Falk Hentschel), as well as her budding romance with Ray Palmer (Brandon Routh).
I think up until now, Kendra’s been just throwing punches and seeing what happens, not really having the best plans. But every time she doesn’t win, I think she gains more confidence that she has to do better next time, so she trains harder and works harder and tries to make better plans. But I think Hawkman being killed and her remembering the many times that she’s been killed by Savage is going to help her be able to do what she has to do in the end.
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Does Kendra start to think about Carter again or has she left him behind?
No, I don’t think that she’s left him behind. I think that that’s something that’s ever present on her mind but also something she’s trying to move forward from, seeing as how she thinks that she’s not going to ever see him again in this lifetime. Wouldn’t you eventually move on too, or try to?
While the Legends are in the past, could they encounter another version of Carter?
I think that would be a bit tragic for Ray, especially since at that point it’s a very, very new relationship and I think it might’ve started a little bit as a rebound for her, but in the most traumatic way possible. I think she’s definitely trying to move forward but seeing Carter again would really upset all of that I think.
Since Kendra is immortal, could she ever run into herself while time traveling?
I think that’s definitely possible but as Rip says, we try not to participate in things that we’ve already participated in. We don’t want a black hole or a vortex or whatever, so we’ll have to see how that pans out.
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What did you think of the way the show addressed the racial tensions of the ‘50s?
I thought that it was a really brave choice for the writers to do that. I certainly said something to that. I was like, “I think we really should touch on this, especially since it’s so relevant now with our social climate in this country.” It was really interesting to play that.
I’ve definitely experienced some things like that growing up so there’s something to draw from on that. I also think it’s good for young people to see that this is something that really happened. It’s something that does still happen and there’s a right and a wrong way to deal with it. If they get to see people that they look up to dealing with these horrible situations in a very heroic way, I think that’s a good thing.
What do you think of her progress towards controlling her bloodlust?
See, I’m not sure that her thing was quite a bloodlust. It was more of just like a rage because when Carter first tried to help her emerge, he kept saying, “Think about the rage, think about the rage.” That was kind of counterintuitive for her. It’s not really how she functions. So I think as soon as she’s able to forgive herself for what happened and start to move on, I think that rage aspect is going to go away and she’ll be more in control of her powers.
Will we hear you sing on the show?
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Not this season unfortunately but I keep crossing my fingers for it. I think it’d be really fun, especially since we time travel. I love jazz music so I keep saying, “What if we went to, like, 1930s France? It’d be fun, I don’t know, we’ll see.
Legends of Tomorrowairs Thursdays at 8 PM on The CW.
