CW wanted to find an openly queer actress to play this role. How did your identity inform the show and the character?

I have a controversial perspective on that kind of thing. What Cate Blanchett said was amazing. She was sort of like, “I will live and die to be able to play the characters that I want to play.” In regards to when she was in “Carol,” when she played Bob Dylan [in “I’m Not There”] — she’s an actor and she thinks actors should be actors, and I don’t think they always need to be gay to play gay. I also don’t always want to play gay because I’m gay. Like “L Word” — there were plenty of people that were gay. Some were straight, some were gay and hadn’t come out yet, but it still changed my life. It still had an impact on me and the stories were told beautifully, and they were done in a way that felt real and authentic.

[The “Batwoman” executive producer] Caroline [Dries] is gay as well, and she was like, “Now that I’ve actually seen you in the pilot, I don’t know if we would have found the right person if it wasn’t for you.” Because we delved away from a love story of me, being gay and having an ex-girlfriend and what that looked like, to kind of doing the military stuff and facing other challenges like the family dynamic. I guess I pulled a lot from personal experience and other people’s stories and friends in the community; in this situation, it probably did make sense. It’s one of those things you don’t know until you’re in it.