EW: Adrianne Palicki reflects on living her 'dream' in NBC's Wonder Woman pilot

[Agent Z]

“It was honestly the scariest thing ever and the best thing ever at the time. Getting to wear that outfit was just a huge dream,” says Palicki, who recalls being nervous when the producers asked her to read with costar Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride) during his audition. "I walk in one day and it’s Cary Elwes. And I’m like, 'I can’t read with him. He was Wesley. He was the love of my life at one point!' I was so nervous. Thankfully, he was a shoo-in and we got to work together and I got to hear all of the amazing stories about Princess Bride."

Developed with Warner Bros. Television, Kelley’s prospective series, which offered a new take on the 70-year-old icon by giving her an Iron Man/Tony Stark-like double identity, received a pilot order from NBC. In the story, the world knows Wonder Woman as both a Los Angeles-based superhero and as her alter ego Diana Themyscira, the leader of a large corporation that merchandises the Wonder Woman brand to fund her vigilante hustle. At the end of the day, though, she returns home to her secret identity, Diana Prince, a meek, bespectacled woman who owns a cat and enjoys romance movies.

“It was fun for me to get to play three different characters ultimately,” says Palicki. “I loved that David E. Kelley is really great at writing really strong women, and I found he did that beautifully in all of the different personas. What they all still had [in common] was this beautiful vulnerability of isolation.”

Despite her confidence in Kelley’s writing, Palicki still felt an immense amount of pressure. “The stans — being one as well — have very strong opinions, and it’s really important, especially in the comic-book community, to win them over. I was very nervous about that—[and] also very beautifully shocked and pleased that people were very supportive of me getting the role, obviously having not seen the show,” she says. “I was lucky enough to have a beautiful writer and my buddy [pilot director] Jeffrey Reiner, who I trust implicitly and is never gonna just settle on a scene if it isn’t perfect. That made me feel much more comfortable. I felt like we were all a team and it wasn’t just me pushing for this.”

https://ew.com/tv/adrianne-palicki-w...unaired-pilot/

[Guy_McNichts]

I think Adrianne Palickie would've been a decent Wonder Woman with better material.

One can gripe about her power level--the show seemed to have her a mid-tier character instead of a powerhouse--but as much as everyone focused on the costume (pants to be darkened), the real failing of the pilot as far as I saw was they characterized Diana as a violent sociopath who tortured people for information--despite having a magic lasso--and casually murdered powerless thugs.

To my mind, the foundation of Diana as a character is her idealism and her compassion. If you mess either of those up, you're screwed from the word go.

[Gaius]

Between the pilot, Injustice, and early images from the New 52 seems like DC was for a bit really to trying to push the pants look for Diana in the first few years of the 2010s.

[stargazer01]

After seeing her work in The Orville, I think Palicki would have made a great Wonder Woman with the right direction.

I never saw this pilot, btw.

[Digifiend]

If you want to see her as a superhero, watch Agents of SHIELD, she was Mockingbird.

[Natamaxxx]

If you want to see her as a superhero, watch Agents of SHIELD, she was Mockingbird.

She was great on AoS! Great acting and excellent in action sequences. She really sold it!

I feel like the show really did wrong by her and Nick Blood when they were written out for a spin-off that never happened.

[DochaDocha]

The pilot was not good. I think a good comparison would be something like Affleck's Daredevil or the 2011 Green Lantern. That said, I think all three projects I mentioned get too much hate, too. I don't think it would've been much worse than some of the long-running series on CW, other than the ugly pants costume. Maybe this is a time when people were judging a book by its cover.

The three identities was a weird take. Making Steve her ally, as well as her ex who married someone else, seemed like a trainwreck about to happen. I admit I would've watched this show if it got a few more episodes, but in the long run we, as fans, didn't really miss out too much.

[Primal Slayer]

Im still not sure how DC/WB were ok with this take on WW. It went against everything the character stood for, all the way down to her having a business where she profited off of her image. And having someone run the show who knew NOTHING about comics was definitely a choice. The cast was great though.

[Psy-lock]

Im still not sure how DC/WB were ok with this take on WW

To be fair, they weren't. I mean they cancelled it for a reason. Now imagine if they had actually approved a whole season of that thing.

[Primal Slayer]

To be fair, they weren't. I mean they cancelled it for a reason. Now imagine if they had actually approved a whole season of that thing.

They didnt cancel it. The network decided to pass on it.

[Frontier]

I think she could've been a great Wonder Woman but she was definitely not going to be playing the character right judging by the pilot, but that's on David E. Kelley.