While many fans are worried how creator David E. Kelley’s new television series about the Amazonian Princess will turn out, it seems no one was more worried than Kelley himself.
Kelley spoke with Vulture about his lengthy career, both the ups and downs, but managed to get in a little information about the inception of his Wonder Woman project for NBC. He said in the beginning he said no to working on the show for obvious reasons. “It’s not really what I do; it’s not a genre that’s in my wheelhouse,” he said, “But then I started thinking about, What if there were such a person in today’s world and what must it be like to be her? And I was imagining the sense of social isolation that she must feel, that she indeed would probably be a rather complicated beast.”
“When I started thinking about all the complications and potential layers to this superhero, I just got more and more intrigued. It was also something I was a little bit afraid of. That’s good, too,” said Kelley, suggesting that writers need to get out of their comfort zones once in a while.
And with that, he jumped head first out of his comfort zone. “I did not truthfully commit to doing it until I wrote the script. I was going to try writing it, and if I failed on my own terms, I would say no. If I thought, Yeah, this is something I believe in, then I’d turn it in. And it was something I ultimately did get behind. It was hard, but I had a good time writing it. And Warner Bros. and DC both responded very positively.”
As to the casting of Adrianne Palicki in the title role, Kelley said although it was a challenge, the process didn’t take very long. “After writing this script, I remember looking at several people and going, ‘Yeah, now good luck trying to find her.’ She’s got to be strong, smart, emotionally accessible — and oh yeah, an Amazon! Good luck,” he said.
With all that in mind, Kelley was prepared to go with an actress who didn’t quite look the role if it meant she encapsulated everything else. “I remember speaking to DC, and saying, ‘We may have to compromise on the physicality. We need to go with the best actress. And if the best actress is five-foot-five, we have to be open to that, because there’s too many layers for this character to also demand that she be nearly six feet tall.’ And then lo and behold, in comes this girl named Adrianne Palicki.”
“I had seen her on Friday Night Lights and I always liked her work, but I didn’t get a sense of her stature. I guess she was sitting down in a lot of the scenes,” said Kelley, “So she stood up, and we met — eyeball to eyeball — she smiled … and I knew during the course of the conversation that this was Wonder Woman. I just knew it. I had an instinctive feeling that this was her. So then she read. And she was. And she is.”
March 24th, 2011 at 1:15 am
Yes. She’s a “Wonder Woman” who is also, apparently, the CEO of some company and wishes she had bigger boobs. I’m not at all optimistic about this. I may give it a shot if initial reviews are absolutely stellar, but… yeah. Given what I’ve read it’s not for me.
March 24th, 2011 at 7:54 am
i’ve never really liked wonder woman as a character but this one looks hot though. will watch if i get the time.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Its funny how amazonian equals height for David E Kelley. This woman is beautiful (this pic doesn’t do her justice), hopefully she can act all the layers he said WW has but she is nowhere near as amazonian as she should be. She is hot and fit but she is frail. There isn’t a bit of muscle on this woman. You want amazonian beauty check out Monica Bellucci. That, my friends, is a goddess.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:16 am
She’s hot and fit, but frail?
What does that mean?
And based on what, exactly?
March 24th, 2011 at 9:21 am
And of course, leave it to liberal David Kelley to not include beautiful among the required qualifications to be WW; that would be objectifying women, blah, blah, blah.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Anyone who was a fan of “Friday Night Lights” knows how great an actor Adrianne is. She will most definately be able to make WW
believable.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:55 am
I know this is supposed to make potential viewers more interested, but all I got from that was that Kelley had to talk himself into this and wasn’t sure if he could do it. He also basically said that he’s only interested in the poor, lonely girl aspect of this character. That’s going to get old. They should have gone to someone interested in the character’s mythology and physicality as well as her alter ego. I don’t want to watch an entire season of a show where they have Wonder Woman fight someone just so they can get to the part where she feels sad for herself after. WB is basically giving everyone Ally McBeal meets The Hills with a side of super-heroics now and then so we’ll care.
An Amazon Princess with super powers and warrior training and a back story involving gods, and you think sending her to LA and making her a corporate cog is going to be the way to go? WW is one of the few characters that really doesn’t need to have a secret identity, but they insist on giving her one in comics and now TV. I hate to say it, but having Diana be a Themysciran Ambassador would have been better.
It’s also hard not get distracted by the costume. This looks like a fairly attractive woman modeling a Wonder Woman costume for Party City’s new Halloween ad. That’s all. I can accept the casting, but I think the actress should be doing more to look the part. Get a trainer and put on some more muscle and try to tan a little bit. Maybe she will. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do to fix the weak jaw line.
March 24th, 2011 at 10:35 am
visually speaking, in real life, there’s nothing worse than costumes. the distinction between the 2d drawings and the 3d real images…well, say what you wnat, costumes in the real world doesn’t make such a scene (see stargirl and fate’s helmet in smallville). to WW, even if I’m not tha interested in the character, both on tv and comics, I’d see her current costume better. this seems just a hallowen costume, at the best, a well-made cosplay costume…
March 24th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
I have to agree, this outfit looks like a halloween costume, well made but halloween none the less. I will watch the series if only to see if this actress has the chops to portray an Amazon princess, she certainly doesn’t look, to me, as though she could kick perpetrator butt.
March 24th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
She doesn’t look like she could kick butt.
That’s what they said about Sarah-Michelle Gellar’s Buffy, too.
March 24th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Yeah and the fighting was the worst part of the Buffy show. Thank god for over-selling stunt men. WW should be “XENA” in modern times, with less humor – NOT “9 to 5″ in modern times with a skinnier Dolly Parton in a Halloween Express outfit.
March 24th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Exactly! Xena is a perfect example of a beautifull amazonian woman.
@Kal-El: It was painfull to watch the fight scenes on Buffy where from frame to frame you distinctly saw the switch between a frail girl to a muscular, thick woman in a wig covering her face.
I sincerelly hope this WW series will be good. I want to see good superheroes shows on tv and I believe David E Kelley, not having a comics background, can probably steer away from the comics cliches and do a down to earth believable show.
March 24th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
I’ll wait and see something real to judge.
I still think that the best way to go would be either the 1980′s George Perez thing or the recent run by Gail Simone as starting points. I would say no to using the reboot because its still unproven as a story and its not that good so far. But if they were to rework the reboot and use Donna Troy instead then it could work.
March 24th, 2011 at 4:54 pm
This sounds so much like Powergirl instead of Wonder Woman. I haven’t read one article past the initial announcement of the TV Series that gave me confidence that it was going to be a good series. This will be the “Lois and Clark, Adventures of Superman” version of Wonder Woman. If it can meet that level of expectation, and that is a pretty low level of expectation.
March 24th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
“I don’t think she knows she has boots on.
This Wonder Woman hasn’t seen her feet…since was 14 years old.”
March 24th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I think if Monica Bellucci would be 20 years younger she would be perfect for the role of Wonder Woman. But maybe Adrianne Palicki can do the part. The REAL PROBLEM here IS THE SCRIPT. No fan wants a corporate CEO, nor Diana Prince. We WANT, we NEED to see Princess Diana of Themiscyra. The Script is the key here. I think many of us would love to see an adaptation of John Byrne’s Run on the Wonder Woman title (The post Crisis era). The mythological aspect, the greek Gods, the warrior princess combined with the naive girl learning about the civilized world. But we can still dream than maybe some day someone will do justice to the character in a Movie or TV show.
March 24th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
By work, I do mean costume but not the way people think. The old costume did make her look like a hooker. That is fixable provided they give some context for why she wears it. The reason why that particular outfit is chosen or designed needs to be known. A slight modification should be made to fill the costume out since it looks like a incomplete version of a regular amazonian outfit so just add a skirt, elbow guards and a helmet.
March 24th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
@AtomR
Neither Donna nor Cassie are very Amazonian looking either. I won’t judge her until I see her in action.
March 24th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
OMG this stinks to high heaven. I mean, just look at that thing! Bright and shiny enough for you? And what’s with the red star–is she some sort of Communist?
This reminds me of one of Carl Jung’s dreams in which he was filled with an inexplicable sense of foreboding until…a giant turd came crashing down from the sky.
March 24th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
The best thing we can all do is sit back and wait for the show to premire. And hope that Kelley is only writing the first show/ pilot and that he has a writining staff that will address most of our (the fans) concerns.
Personally, I’m wary about his take on WW, but then I worried about Keaton as Batman and was surprised at how well that worked.
Patience , People.
March 25th, 2011 at 12:23 am
I’ll still give Kelley the benifit of a doubt. If it bombs, here is hoping the execs at the WB and DC will be fired, not to mention live with fans’ remorse in not letting Joss Whedon show his vision of WONDER WOMAN.
March 25th, 2011 at 8:56 am
I’m a big fan of David E Kelly so I do have some faith he can do a decent show.
March 25th, 2011 at 9:38 am
Seriously, just wait to see an episode before we start judging… You never know, it might be a really good show even if it’s not what we’ve come to know from Wonder Woman…
March 25th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Byrne, Perez and Rucka are the only people who have ever made me really enjoy WW, and that’s because they specifically avoided the “romance for romance’s sake” aspect. Their WW is a person, not a swooning girl.
March 26th, 2011 at 11:59 am
Terry Says:
March 24th, 2011 at 9:21 am
And of course, leave it to liberal David Kelley to not include beautiful among the required qualifications to be WW; that would be objectifying women, blah, blah, blah.
Terry,
How do you know that David Kelley is a liberal? Your comments suggest that you don’t like Liberals. I am a liberal and damn proud of it. The problem is people like you with a narrow minded view of the world. My suggestion is be open and give David Kelley a chance.
March 26th, 2011 at 9:05 pm
>Gregory< Duhhhhhhh! Everybody in Hollywood is a Liberal. The problem is that Liberals are hypocrites who claim to believe in Freedom of Speech, but fire ppl like Chuck Dixon bc they dont agree he has the right to express himself. BTW I'm an Independent! Uhhhh Unit99 must watch Fix News! Oh no! Go tell our commander in chief to stop being the 3rd term of Bush! ANYWAY Why did DC change WW costume to instead use this cheep Halloween costume.
March 28th, 2011 at 12:01 am
The costume is too shiny on TV screen and the cast is just not my personal taste for Wonder Woman, but maybe Donna Wonder Girl. I think the recent rumor of Cobie Smulders is better cast.
Not too excited by the picture given above, even Xena suits are more amazon like.
March 28th, 2011 at 10:17 pm
Did he just say all liberals were hypocrites? The intelligence overwhelms me.
I agree with Norton- let’s judge the show when there is something to judge.
March 30th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Just saw so footage on set and they changed her pants! No more shine! The costume looks ten times better.
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