Last week KSiteTV visited the set of NBC’s new DC Comics workplace comedy Powerless, a show starring Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical and Grease Live! fame as a young woman going to work at a company run by none other than Bruce Wayne’s inept cousin, Van Wayne, as played by Firefly’s Alan Tudyk. The series is the first comedy ever set in the DC Comics universe, and it is populated by some familiar global guardians who might have more in common with Justice League Europe than the big-time Justice League; in fact, the town of Charm City might be too B-list to even attract any Legends of Tomorrow.
“We have Crimson Fox and Jack O’Lantern. Those are our main superhero and villain in Charm City,” Hudgens says about the main DC characters we will see in Powerless. “Jack O’Lantern’s always terrorizing the town of Charm City. We’ve had a few fun random ones. I think that’s what’s really funny about our show, is that in Charm City, it’s kind of like the B-list superheroes and supervillains. You’ll never see Batman there, really, but there are a few interesting comic characters.”
Keeping with the DC theme, like many DC TV series before it, the Powerless pilot features an important appearance that was actually a clip from the first, unused version of the Powerless premiere. The scene, which we see in flashback, features Superman: The Movie’s Jimmy Olsen, Marc McClure.
“It was a quickie,” Hudgens recalls of her time working with the actor who portrayed Jimmy in four Superman movies as well as the Supergirl film with Helen Slater. “He was in for only a few minutes and he was gone before I knew it, but he was so, so sweet. He was a really awesome guy who’s done really awesome stuff, so it was great having him on set,” she enthuses.
As for her own character, Emily Locke, Hudgens describes her as very positive and very optimistic. “I don’t think anything can change that, because that is truly who she is. She really believes she can change the world, and she wants to, and she wants to motivate people to do the same, but obviously being around superheroes and supervillains, getting used to the damage that they cause, and getting used to having the worst boss ever, it definitely is taxing on Emily, but she stays chipper,” she says.
Finally… Hudgens is often heard singing on the set of Powerless. Could this mean a musical episode might happen in the future? “Musical things happen at times, not in a musical episode. But there could be one in the future, yeah. I am singing all the time, so maybe that would give them a hint.”
Powerless premieres Thursday night, February 2 on NBC. You can find a trailer at the top of this article.
