Batgirl HBO Max Adds Trans Actress Ivory Aquino as Alysia Yeoh

Ivory Aquino at the 2018 Writers Guild Awards L.A. Ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for 2018 Writers Guild Awards L.A. Ceremony (Getty Images) The cast of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s HBO Max film Batgirl keeps growing, today adding a best friend for Barbara Gordon : Ivory Aquino, who’ll play bartender Alysia Yeoh—a former roommate of Barbara’s who also happens to be one of DC Comics’ most notable trans characters . Deadline reported the news.
Previously, Aquino played transgender civil rights leader Cecilia Chung in ABC’s 2017 docuseries When We Rise, which explored the history of LGBT activism in the United States; she also appeared in Ava DuVernay ’s 2019 Netflix series When They See Us. Here she joins a cast that includes Leslie Grace (In the Heights) in the title role and J.K. Simmons as Batgirl/Barbara’s father, Gotham City police commissioner Jim Gordon. In addition: Michael Keaton is ( famously ) set to reprise his role as Batman circa the Tim Burton movies, while Brendan Fraser is playing the villain (although we don’t know yet which villain). With a script from gaming Christine Hodson (Bumblebee, Birds of Prey), adapted from the comics by writer Gail Simone and artist Ardian Syaf, Batgirl is expected to arrive on HBO Max later this year.
Read more from io9: Wondering where our RSS feed went? You can pick the new up one here .