Rachel Maddow to Voice Vesper Fairchild in The CW’s ‘Batwoman’

MSNBC host and political analyst Rachel Maddow is heading to The CW’s Batwoman. Currently enjoying a big ratings bump amid talk of the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump, she will have an important role in the Ruby Rose-led drama.

Maddow will be portraying a television and radio personality named Vesper Fairchild, a character from the Batman comics. In the comics, Fairchild once had a romantic relationship with Bruce Wayne (Batman). The catch is that Maddow’s Fairchild will never actually appear onscreen — at least there are no current plans for her to do so. Still, Maddow is expected to “appear” in multiple episodes as a voice on the radio, starting with the Batwoman series debut this coming Sunday.

“We consider Vesper Fairchild to be the sardonic Voice of Gotham,” Batwoman showrunner Caroline Dries told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement. “In addition to Rachel’s interest in Batwoman, we thought she’d be the perfect casting choice because her own hard-hitting journalism wildly contrasts Vesper’s penchant for snark, gossip and criticism of female superheroes.”

Maddow had previously written the introduction for the 2010 deluxe hardcover edition of writer Greg Rucka’s Batwoman graphic novel Elegy, that collected Detective Comics issues 854-860.

Debuting Sunday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m., The CW’s Batwoman is exec produced by Greg Berlanti and Dries (The Vampire Diaries). Ruby Rose (Orange Is the New Black) takes on the title role of Batwoman/Kate Kane. Batwoman is part of The CW’s growing Arrow-verse, which in turn was a spinoff of their widely popular Smallville. She will have the distinction of being primetime television’s first out-of-the-closet lesbian superhero as its character lead (that also happens to be played by an out-of-the-closet actress).

The Fairchild character had previously been established as part of the Arrow-verse in last year’s Elseworlds crossover, in which she was revealed to have previously had an intimate relationship with Oliver Queen / Arrow (Stephen Amell).

Here’s the latest trailer for Batwoman.

Gene Turnbow

President of Krypton Media Group, Inc., radio personality and station manager of SCIFI.radio. Part writer, part animator, part musician, part illustrator, part programmer, part entrepreneur – all geek.