‘Supergirl’ Star Azie Tesfai Breaks Down the Purposefully “Uncomfortable” Conversations In “Blind Spots”

This week’s episode of Supergirl was something decidedly different. Co-written by series star Azie Tesfai, who plays Kelly Olsen, we got to see the events of last week’s episode, but from the ground level perspective of someone dealing with the fall-out. So while Supergirl (Melissa Benoist) and her friends are battling fifth dimensional imps, the people in the inner city of National City are suffering, and it’s up to Kelly to step up, in a big way.

“It was incredibly empowering,” Tesfai told Decider. “Not just to be able to write the story of this character that I love so much stepping into her own power, but… Me within myself and my own life stepping into this new career, and loving it so much. And, getting to tell the story and being given so much control over so many aspects of this episode was an incredible experience.”

After Nyxly (Peta Sergeant) announced her villainous intentions two episodes ago by bringing down a building while Supergirl watched helplessly, many residents were left hurt and homeless. And as we enter this week’s episode, titled Blind Spots”, Kelly is on the ground with them. She realizes that not only is an evil councilwoman sucking power from them to level up herself (literally redistributing power in her favor), but they all need some serious help that can’t just come through punching. So it’s up to her to convince the Super-friends that despite their best intentions, ally-ship only goes so far if you’re leaving just as things get hard.

As mentioned, the hour was co-written by Tesfai and series scribe J. Holtham, and directed by Arrow-verse veteran David Ramsey, who also guest stars as John Diggle. And what follows is an emotionally intense episode that lays out difficult conversations about race from almost every angle, leading to both Tesfai suiting up as Guardian, a new take on an old superhero; and a quiet, heartbreaking scene between Kelly and her girlfriend Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh).

To find out more about the episode, what went into scripting some of the bigger scenes, working on the design of the Guardian suit, and a little bit about how Kelly wraps up the series, read on.

Decider: There is so much for you to tackle here… Your first TV script, your first time suiting up as Guardian, and not to mention you’re in nearly every scene of the episode. What was it like working on this one?

Azie Tesfai: It was incredibly empowering. Not just to be able to write the story of this character that I love so much stepping into her own power, but… Me within myself and my own life stepping into this new career, and loving it so much. And, getting to tell the story and being given so much control over so many aspects of this episode was an incredible experience.

I was really impressed because you gave yourself almost an extra level of difficulty by weaving a good chunk of this episode through the events of the previous episode.

I had a couple episodes off to join the writers room. I did a month in the writers room, and then I was doing passes and stuff. And so, knowing that I wouldn’t be in the episode before my big episode, I thought it very important for the storyline not to be a stand-alone, and to be an arc. That was a huge step-away chunk, Episode 11, and I though “can we go back? Can we reverse it back and see it from her perspective?” You know, it was a conversation because it was a format we had never done before, and that had to be approved. Once it was, we really dug deep in working. Luckily, I had joined the writers room when they were breaking 9, so we really worked with the writers of 11 to get benchmarks throughout their episode and use it to write our own. And that felt really exciting because, it’s one thing to be able to co-write the episode and for it to be featured through my character. But to have the audience walk through her perspective felt really important.

It really doubles down on the idea that while the Super-friends are off fighting these big evils, these imps from the 5th dimension, there’s all these other things that are being left on the ground level at the same time. So I imagine that was part of the choice as well.

Yeah, yeah… You know, we have a formula with these superhero shows, and we do tend to fight the “big bads” and we don’t examine what happens on a more personal level with the communities that we are fighting above. In any world, it’s always people fighting in the sky and you don’t think about: what damage do superheroes do when they are fighting, or trying to defend? Or what’s the other side of that? I think, to tell it through Kelly’s perspective and then to tell it through the community’s perspective…it felt very empowering, because we always see it through the superhero. And what does it look like when the community is telling their own story?

It’s interesting to look at the timing of this, which I understand is very much out of your control. The broadcast schedule has changed, TV takes a while to make… But, we had these huge national protests that engulfed the news last Summer, and this is being aired a year later. Obviously the issues involved have not gone away by any means, but how does that impact how you think of the episode, and potentially how you think viewers may as well?

We knew when we were gonna air approximately. We had a good idea when we were writing it how far out it would be, and the things that I wrote in the episode were experiences that I had, or things that I felt or said or wish I could have said if I was in power, long before I think the world became aware of… The moment of Black lives mattering and injustices that were occurring in society. So, for me it felt like the perfect time, because it was maybe in a moment where people were starting to not stay conscious and aware of these discrepancies with justice, and it felt like the perfect moment to revisit the conversation. In writing it, we tried to leave it open-ended in a way that feels like the conversation never ends. So while so many people identify it with the Summer, it’s a lifelong experience, and for those of us who live it, it’s an everyday experience. I’m glad that it’s not close to the Summer or the Fall and that it’s so far later, and what I’m happy with is we continue, it doesn’t just drop after this episode. It’s a conversation that Alex and Kelly continue to have, and [there are] moments of it throughout the rest of the season.

The dialogue is so raw and honest… What was it like, trying to encapsulate these feelings and get them down on paper? And was it cathartic in any way for you?

It was really emotional initially. It was…complicated. The writers room experience was really beautiful. I’m really close friends with a lot of our writers, so having these conversations in a safe space where people could acknowledge their blind spots and say something that, maybe wasn’t received well, but we were all friends and we could [work] it through… That felt very cathartic. When J. [Holtham] and I went off to write the episode, that was hard because we were really vulnerable with one another about where our past experience brought us to, telling this story. And they are very different, you know? As is David Ramsey’s experience.

So integrating his perspective, and then going off and actually writing the scenes… I cried a lot writing them, as I was typing. I think maybe it’s because I’m an actor first, I perform them as I write. Or, I would do a voice note and say what I want to say and then transcribe it after, so a lot of those voice notes are very emotional. It didn’t occur to me, for whatever weird reason, that I was gonna have to perform these. It felt very separate. We did many notes calls with the studio and the network, and then when it came time time to perform it I think that was, one, I was like “why did I write so many lines for Kelly?” [laughs] and then, two, I was already pretty tired by the time we got there but… Thank god that I trusted Ramsey and J so much, and had them there to be very vulnerable and lean into the emotional parts of it. And that felt…scary and empowering at the same time.

You also have these very powerful and important one on one conversations with each of the members of the cast. It almost goes down the line in a way, where they each have to reckon with what they have done — or not done — to help out Kelly. How much did these parallel real life conversations that you had with the cast, if at all?

It totally did, everything came from a very real place. Which made it all very emotional to shoot… Sometimes very uncomfortable to shoot, which was the intention. I wanted that to carry through because these are uncomfortable conversations. With certain characters and actors, like with Alex or Kara, or with Chyler and Melissa… Respectfully, they both really wanted to lean into the truth and the uncomfortableness. That was very important for them as well. There was no, which I appreciated, “protecting” their characters. It was like “let’s be real about what these private conversations can look like, and what these missteps can look like.”

And then, so many of the other dynamics were real, as well. For J’onn, it was very much written from my understanding, from David [Harewood] as a foreigner, as a Black Englishman and what that looks like in the States. I know that he really related to scenes that he had as J’onn, which we’ve never really addressed the fact that J’onn chooses to show up as a Black man in this country over and over, which if most people could pick? They wouldn’t, given our society. Then I was very protective of Nia, which… When I joined the show I had a lot of issues with racism, and the fandom… It was really hard. Nicole [Maines] was someone who got it very quickly, just based on her lived experience, so I wanted Nia to feel a little bit closer to understanding it. Then, Brainy was removed from it, but he really stepped in and that’s true to Jesse [Rath] and I. You know, when I found out I was gonna be Guardian, Jesse was the first person I texted and [he] had a whole folder of samples and swatches ready that he had already made for me. So, a lot of this episode is very accurate.

In the first act, there are nearly no caucasian faces at all on the screen, other than the villainous councilwoman. I assume that was a purposeful choice?

Yeah, I mean it’s usually almost the opposite. Where, you rarely see any people of color for whole acts, in a lot of shows. When they decided to do this inner-city story line, tackling the prison reform system… It just felt like, if we are gonna feature this community it has to be told from this perspective. Like, it cannot be a superheroes outside looking in. Which, I feel like many times is how stories of color are told, and I’ve been that character that’s the one Black woman on the show and has to represent… Everyone, you know? You’re like, I have to represent men, women, all the nuances of what it means to be my race. And that’s a lot of pressure, so I think with our guest star specifically it was really important for me to not have… We’ve never touched race with Kelly, for years. So, to all of a sudden do that felt wrong. But to make her a social worker, and have her pivot, and to tell the story through all of these incredible guest stars that came in, felt like the best way to tell the story of all the nuances of what it means to be African American, or Black.

We were able to do that though the Orlando [Jhaleil Swaby] character and the Joey [Aiden Stoxx] character, and then me and Ramsey and Diggle and J’onn. So, I think the idea was to really see this perspective in the first act, and when you zoom out and go back to normal life, you’re not gonna forget it. I started this journey with this group of people and the audience is like, “what’s happening with them?” So they’re almost with Kelly, ideally, on the journey of like, “hey you guys, pay attention.”

What was it was like putting on the Guardian suit for the first time? And then, continuing to wear it, going forward?

It was emotional… Which was surprising to me. I mean, the first time I walked in and our wonderful wardrobe girls in Vancouver had it all laid out. I said “I imagine it’s what women feel like on their wedding day.” All my gold metal pieces were laid out beautifully on the table and they got me in the suit and added all the pieces… And we all got weirdly emotional about it. To be able to partner with them and design it, it took us 6 months to do, and we were able to have a lot of time, which a lot of the other actors didn’t have as much leeway to perfect the suit. It was an honor, and it felt super exciting, and I think the suit’s great. I tried to honor the comics as much as possible with it, which felt really exciting. I’ve never seen the Guardian gold in live action as it was in the comics, so that felt super exciting. The half helmet, there was a lot of pieces of it, and then figuring out the braids and the beads and the little details that meant a lot to me… It never gets old suiting up. Every time you do it you’re like, “I have the wildest job, this is so cool.”

The scene towards the end of Kelly, first alone in the apartment, and then Alex comes in… It’s paced so differently than nearly anything else in the series, just giving you time to be in that space — and it’s so emotionally charged throughout. What was it like filming that?

That was actually the first scene that we shot of the episode, first thing in the morning. It was very emotional, Chyler and I shot the first take… And cried. And Ramsey’s like, “we have like 20 more to go, so pace yourselves,” and we cried every single time. I think she and I personally have a very close and intimate friendship, and so the uncomfortableness of it… My pain in it, which was very real — it all felt very real, a lot of these scenes felt very real. It was emotional.

Also, I couldn’t see when I was wrapping my hair in the mirror, the way that I was positioned I couldn’t actually see myself, so that the camera could get around. But Chyler could, because Ramsey was set up in the hall with the monitors. So, before she walked in she was watching that. There was just a lot of weight to that whole scene, and that scene actually was pretty much exactly like the first draft. It did not change, which is pretty incredible, because everything changes. That scene was constantly left untouched, which I feel very proud of, and meant a lot to all of us. Me, Ramsey and J made a point to ask — we’re an action show, there’s not a lot of quiet time — to please leave that whole intro piece in that last scene where she’s just not saying anything, and they did. I think, and I hope that the audience… It gives them a pause.

For some, it’s really moving; for some it may feel a little uncomfortable. All those feelings are right in this episode. I think some people will feel really seen, some people will feel awkward watching some of these conversations… And I think we all felt that way while writing it, and while shooting it, and that is what I want to normalize when people have these conversations with their loved ones, is that it’s never clean and it is uncomfortable. And, you know, in tribute to that last scene, it most likely is never going to just work itself out. It’s open ended, and you’re not going to get all the answers you need. But, if you really love someone, you try to support them in the best way that you can, give space to their own experience and honor that.

Looking ahead, were you happy where Kelly ended up at the end of the series?

Yes! You know, I think it’s a blessing when you can walk away from a show and say “there’s nothing more that we can do.” She really has a big, big last half of the season; in her professional life, as a superhero, with her partnership with Alex and where they go, it’s just… Everything happens for her in a really beautiful way. So I feel lucky that I feel so satisfied with her story, because I know that’s a very special experience and a blessing to have.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Supergirls airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.

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