Jennifer Holland first stepped into the DC franchise as Emilia Harcourt in 2021’s The Suicide Squad, a minor supporting role that barely hinted at what was coming. Gunn then expanded Harcourt into a series regular for Peacemaker, giving Holland a showcase to develop one of the franchise’s best characters across two seasons. Then came Superman, where Gunn revealed Holland had an uncredited voice role as one of the Fortress of Solitude robots, a cameo fans only learned about after the film’s release. With another DCU movie now in theaters, Supergirl, ComicBook sat down with Holland for an exclusive interview as part of her collaboration with Milk Bone to find out whether she pulled off the same trick twice.
“I do not secretly voice any characters in Supergirl,” Holland told us when asked if she also had a secret role in the latest DCU movie, “although that’s their loss.” The star also added that it might not be long before we hear her again. “No, I don’t secretly voice any characters,” she added. “But you may. Who knows, you may see me secretly voice another character in the future, so we’ll see.” Given that Holland’s husband and DC Studios’ co-head, James Gunn, is currently shooting his next movie, Man of Tomorrow, it is not a stretch to think Holland will return to voice one of Superman’s robots or even another strange creature brought to Earth by Lars Eidinger’s Brainiac. Meanwhile, her main character, Harcourt, is now part of Checkmate, a spy agency that should appear in future DCU projects.
During our conversation, Holland also opened up about how she participates in Gunn’s creative process outside the frame. As his wife, Holland is often the first person to read his scripts and offer notes, a process that led to a complete rewrite of Peacemaker season 2. Holland described the moment in detail:
“I think that I’m really good at character and story. I think one of the best helps that I gave James, for instance, was when he was writing season two of Peacemaker. I read the first draft, like an earlier version of the story that he was coming up with, and I liked it all, obviously. James is such a great writer. If it gets to the point where he’s handing it to someone, it’s going to be a pretty good story. I was like, ‘I really like this. It’s fun. It’s action-packed. There’s like a lot of like intrigue happening.’ But I was like, ‘We haven’t seen these characters for like three years by this time.’ We want to know what’s been going on with the characters. Where have they been? You know, what’s the what’s changed in their lives, yada yada yada. And I don’t feel like we’re jumping into the things that really what is what interest us about these characters. Even though it’s a superhero story, it’s, you know, very grounded, and it’s about the relationships. And so he ended up scrapping that and just started over. And that’s when he came up with the story for Season 2 that we have now, which was really grounded in the relationships.”
Holland’s push to slow down and let the team reckon with the time jump was correct, as Peacemaker Season 2’s success derives from the series giving Harcourt, Adrian (Freddie Stroma), Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), and John (Steve Agee) room to reckon with the time apart and deepen their bonds to each other and to Chris Smith (John Cena). The season also forces Chris to face his traumatic upbringing, with the wackiness of parallel dimensions and doppelgängers serving his emotional growth, rather than the other way around. That’s why, despite a divisive finale that suddenly moves the series in a different direction, Peacemaker Season 2 remains beloved by fans. It’s safe to say, then, that Holland’s notes to Gunn are helping build a better DCU.
Supergirl is currently in theaters, while Man of Tomorrow is scheduled for release on July 9, 2027.
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