For Savannah Welch, her real-life experiences were able to inform the development of Barbara Gordon for DC’s Titans.
Welch, fresh off her role on Mare of Easttown, currently plays former Batgirl Barbara Gordon on the HBO Max series Titans. The show introduces her character after the now-infamous attack by the Joker that paralyzed her. She’s hung up her cape and cowl and become the GCPD commissioner following the death of her father, Jim Gordon. For Welch, whose leg was amputated after an accident in 2016, playing the iconic character has been both challenging and rewarding.
“It’s an honor. I guess there’s a bit of intimidation with the responsibility to get it right,” Welch told W magazine of bringing Barbara to life. “There are so many people who, like you said, love this character and have looked up to her, and she’s been a symbol for the disability community in media, and one of the very few. So it was really important to me to honor what existed out there already with the history of this character and all of the evolutions and incarnations that she’s had in the DC Universe. We also had freedom to embellish that or fill it in with our own storylines and create a real person who has thoughts and feelings and needs and all of those things.”
Though Welch is one of the few actors with a disability to play a character with a disability and has some insight into Barbara’s world thanks to her own experiences, she isn’t a wheelchair user like the former Batman ally, so she wanted to make sure she played the character with as much authenticity as possible.
“It was really important to Warner Bros. to find somebody for the role who is in the disability community,” Welch said. “I had done a little bit of research, it is something like 90% or 95% of characters who have disabilities are played by able-bodied actors. It’s not necessary. I’m not [using a wheelchair], so that was a part of this character that I really wanted to portray as accurately and honestly as I possibly could. I drew from my own experience of having limitations, having to rely on other people for help here and there, but also being very independent and deciding this is not going to limit my ability to do the things that I want to do in my life. Barbara Gordon certainly hasn’t let it slow her down.”
New episodes of Titans air Thursdays on HBO Max.
Source: W
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