Ruby Rose Quits The CW’s ‘Batwoman’ And Will Have To Be Recast Entirely

Like most other viewers of the CW’s Batwoman, I was incredibly confused when I heard this news item late yesterday. Two days after the season 1 finale with season 2 already secured, Ruby Rose, star of the show, announced that she was quitting Batwoman.

What followed was a pair of polite statements from both Rose and the production team, each wishing each other the best going forward, and if there is any actual “drama” there, it’s being hidden well.

Here’s part of Rose’s statement:

“I have made the very difficult decision to not return to Batwoman next season. This was not a decision I made lightly as I have the utmost respect for the cast, crew and everyone involved with the show in both Vancouver and in Los Angeles.”

Quite simply, no one knows why this is happening, other than the parties intimately involved. Rose previously suffered a pretty serious back injury, but reportedly that does not have anything to do with this. She has been harassed online for being a lesbian actress portraying a lesbian superhero to the point where she got off Twitter, but it’s unclear if that’s a reason. There are possibilities like she simply didn’t want to limit her career options, being locked into one role for 3-5 more years (these CW shows tend to run long), or quite simply there could be personal or family issues she has to take care of that we don’t know about.

Whatever the case, it’s a strange situation for a show to lose its lead after a single season, and it does not happen often. And in this case, the show simply cannot exist without A) Batwoman or B) Kate Kane, and so Rose will simply have to be recast altogether. It won’t be anyone new wearing the cowl, it will just be another actress playing Kane. She is too integrated into every other character on the show to simply disappear.

When Rose was originally cast, it was the result of an attempt to find an LGBTQ actress to play an LGBTQ superhero, and already we are hearing that the same search process will happen again for the next actress. I do not have an immediately accessible list of all LGBTQ actresses who could take Rose’s place, but the one that popped into my mind immediately was Cara Delevingne, who looks a bit like Rose, is around the same age. Though she is currently starring in Amazon’s Carnival Row, which was renewed for a second season, so she may not be free. So I have no idea who may end up taking Rose’s place here, whether it will be an actress we know or if they will elevate a relative unknown.

I do wonder whether or not the show will comment on the recasting in any meaningful capacity or make it a storyline. The show deals with both characters that transform their faces (a signature of the main group of bad guys this past season) and also giant plotlines about the multiverse and other dimensions collapsing in on each other, so there are ways they could deal with this in traditional “comic book-ish” fashion. Or they could just say nothing at all, which might be the better play.

It certainly is a strange situation, and I hope that Ruby Rose is doing okay. We’ll see who replaces her rather soon, I’d imagine.

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