Caitlyn Jenner has accomplished a great deal in her life. In fact, Kylie Jenner credits Cait for her near-billionaire status. But, for Cait, it’s not enough.
She wents to get into acting. Rather, she wants to get back into acting.
Specifically, she wants to play a big, bad supervillainess in a Marvel movie.
Caitlyn Jenner spoke about a number of things in this week’s special Variety issue on transgender Hollywood.
The former Olympian would love to return to acting, this time “in a Marvel movie,” Caitlyn says.
Cait shares her dream: “I want to play the baddest-ass lady you’ve ever seen in your life.”
Well, that role was taken by another Cait — when Cate Blanchett played Hela in Thor: Ragnarok.
“They got the wicked queen,” Cait, who does not get into a specific role that she desires. “Or the wicked lady.”
“Just do the makeup and the outfit,” Caitlyn says. “And I got the deep voice.”
Caitlyn has acted before — before she transitioned, she played a male athlete on Murder, She Wrote.
Additionally, she was effectively playing a character every time that she pretended to be the man that society saw her as for decades.
Caitlyn says that she feared: “Did I build up this character so big that I’m stuck with Bruce for the rest of my life?”
Transitioning takes a tremendous amount of courage. Doing so as a public figure was a major challenge.
“And it scared the hell out of me,” she admits.
Cait recalls that she was considered for the role of Superman before Christopher Reeve was cast.
Cait says: “They call up: ‘Would you be interested in a screen test for “Superman”?’”
At the time, she says, she felt overwhelmed.
“It was just too much for me,” Cait admits. “I would have gone down as the most macho guy in the world, and that’s not me. It’s not even close to being me.”
This feeds her desire to play a female supervillain — to make it to the big screen in a more authentic, empowering role.
“That’s why I want to play that badass b–ch,” Cait says. “I can play that girl.”
Of course, if Caitlyn plays a supervillain, that could be potentially problematic.
Given Cait’s complicated political views — if you’ll recall, her support for Trump lost her almost all of the good will that she had obtained by publicing coming out as transgender — some fans might prefer to see another transgender actress.
After all, Laverne Cox and Candis Cayne are accomplished actresses who are not regarded as traitors within the trans community.
Cait has come around on politics after she realized what everyone else already knew — that Trump was going to oppose LGBT+ rights at every turn to appease his base and spite his enemies.
There is also the issue of casting a trans woman as a villain when so many trans folks, especially those who are younger, would rather see representation among heroes.
That said … which Marvel characters could Cait play?
Aunt May is already taken, and while we don’t yet know the plot of Spider-Man: Far From Home, we kind of imagine that it’s not going to feature Madame Web.
Besides, neither of those are villains. And we’re struggling to think of a female Marvel villain in the right age bracket who would really work for Cait.
That said, since Disney has acquired X-Men (etc) from Fox, reuniting Marvel with its best properties, maybe that creates some new options for a new character in what many fans hope will be Marvel’s run of clean slate X-Men films.
Caitlyn Jenner could portray an outspoken mutant who vocally supports the Mutant Registration Act or even some sort of Sentinel Program, only to come to bitterly regret it — too late.
Or perhaps that would be too on-the-nose?
Of course, if Cait just wanted to play a villain in a superhero film, people might suggest Granny Goodness — though she is a villain from the DC Universe.
But Granny Goodness is a role that we all know in our hearts belongs to Kathy Bates, even though the DC movies so far have either been bad, catastrophically bad, or Wonder Woman
(At least Aquaman looks like it’s going to be really good and strike a wildly different tone from the grimdark, colorless films like Dawn of Justice)
Still, it would be neat if Cait could be cast as a Marvel villain. She might not be perfect, but it would be great to get to see her live this dream.
It would be even better if they also cast a trans woman as a protagonist, to give someone else the opportunity … and to make it clear that what’s villainous about Cait(‘s character) is not that she’s transgender.
Notably, as we mentioned when Ruby Rose was cast as Batwoman, a trans actress has been cast as a trans superhero on the CW’s Supergirl.
