Calista Flockhart: Cat Grant in Supergirl, Kara Danvers's mentor

Before Supergirl: Broadway and Ally McBeal

Calista Kay Flockhart was born on November 11, 1964 in Freeport, Illinois. Trained in theater at Rutgers University, she made her Broadway debut in 1994 in The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, in the role of Laura Wingfield. On the big screen, she got noticed in The Birdcage (1996), alongside Robin Williams and Nathan Lane.

Then came the role that changed everything. In 1997, David E. Kelley gave her the title character ofAlly McBeal, a Boston lawyer with musical hallucinations and complicated love life. The series became a worldwide phenomenon, ran five seasons until 2002, and earned her a Golden Globe in 1998 as well as several Emmy nominations.

Ally McBeal made her a familiar face across the planet, to the point of appearing on the cover of Time in 1998. She followed up with Brothers & Sisters (2006-2011), where she played Kitty Walker, a Republican political commentator within a Democratic family, for five seasons.

When Supergirl was being put together in 2015, Calista Flockhart had therefore already carried two hit series over more than two hundred episodes. She had nothing to prove, which would matter in the way she approached Cat Grant.

Cat Grant: from the comics journalist to the boss of CatCo

In the comics, Cat Grant is a journalist at the Daily Planet created in 1987, a gossip columnist and occasional rival of Lois Lane. The series Supergirl transforms her radically: she becomes Cat Grant, founder and CEO of CatCo Worldwide Media, a media empire based in National City.

This Cat is a self-made woman, formidable in business, curt with her employees, and she's the one who hires Kara Danvers as an assistant. She's also the one who, in the first episode, names the heroine "Supergirl" and defends that choice of name to Kara, who would have preferred "Superwoman."

The character owes a lot to Miranda Priestly, the editor-in-chief of The Devil Wears Prada, and the series owns the reference. But Calista Flockhart adds something: beneath the harshness, an understanding of people that makes Cat the first character to guess that her assistant and Supergirl are one and the same.

Our article on Kara Zor-El retraces the heroine's history in the comics; this one focuses on the television version and on the place Cat Grant holds in it.

Season 1: Kara Danvers's mentor

Aired on CBS from October 2015 to April 2016, the first season makes Cat Grant a main character, present in every episode. Her role is twofold: Kara's unbearable boss by day, Supergirl's unwitting advisor by night.

Some scenes have become classics of the series. Cat explaining to Supergirl that she first has to learn to wear the suit before saving the world; Cat, facing a Kara in the middle of a crisis of confidence, reminding her that you build nothing without failing first; Cat confronting her assistant with the obvious fact of her double identity, before letting herself be convinced otherwise.

Opposite Melissa Benoist, the generation gap works at full strength. Melissa Benoist was twenty-seven, Calista Flockhart fifty-one; one plays enthusiasm, the other clear-sightedness. Many viewers consider this duo the best thing the series ever did.

The season ends on a promotion: Cat, who has understood what Kara is worth, finally offers her the chance to choose her own position at CatCo. The mentor lets go of the student's hand, without saying so.

Why she stepped back after season 1

The change of network came down to economic reasons: Supergirl was expensive for CBS, and The CW, which already aired Arrow and The Flash, made it possible to integrate it into the Arrowverse. Vancouver, where those series are filmed, was the obvious choice.

Married to Harrison Ford since 2010 and mother of a son adopted in 2001, Calista Flockhart never hid that she wanted to stay close to her family in California. So she went from main character to recurring character, then special guest.

The writers had to rewrite season 2 without her anchor: James Olsen takes charge of CatCo, Lena Luthor arrives in National City, and Kara becomes a journalist. Cat's absence is felt, and the series never quite hid it.

Her returns: seasons 2, 3 and the finale

Calista Flockhart returns four times in season 2, including the two-part finale, where Cat Grant speaks out publicly again in the face of the Daxamite invasion. Her appearances are short, but each is written as an event.

In season 3, Cat leaves CatCo to become White House press secretary under President Olivia Marsdin. Only two appearances, but they broaden the character: Cat is no longer the boss of a newspaper, she speaks on behalf of the country.

Then comes the series finale, aired in November 2021. Cat Grant returns one last time, and it's to her that Kara grants the interview in which she reveals to the world that she is Supergirl. The loop is closed: the one who named the heroine in the first episode collects her confession in the last.

This writing choice says everything about the character's importance. Over six seasons and more than one hundred and twenty episodes, the series featured dozens of characters; for its last word, it called back Cat Grant.

What Calista Flockhart brought to the character

The comics' Cat Grant is an interchangeable supporting role; the series' Cat is a complete character, and the actress is responsible for that. Three choices explain this success.

First, the pace. Calista Flockhart plays Cat like an engine: she talks fast, cuts people off, gives orders, without ever shouting. This energy comes straight from Ally McBeal, but turned around: where Ally doubted everything, Cat doubts nothing, at least in public.

Next, the flaw. From season 1 on, the series shows a Cat who's an absent mother, eaten away by her relationship with her elder son Adam, then attentive to her younger son Carter. The actress plays these scenes without pathos, and that's what makes them credible.

Finally, the way she looks at Kara. Cat is the only character who treats Kara as a capable adult, not as a heroine to protect. Our feature on what sets Supergirl apart from Superman insists on this difference: Kara has to learn, and Cat is the one who teaches her.

After Supergirl: Feud and the stage

Since Supergirl, Calista Flockhart has filmed little, but she has chosen carefully. In 2022, she returned to the stage at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee, in the role of Martha, one of the most daunting in the American repertoire.

In 2024, she returned to television in Feud: Capote vs. The Swans, Ryan Murphy's series about the fall of Truman Capote. She plays Lee Radziwill, Jackie Kennedy's sister, in all eight episodes of the season, opposite Naomi Watts and Diane Lane.

Her public life remains discreet. Married to Harrison Ford since June 15, 2010, whom she met at the Golden Globes in January 2002, she appears mostly at his side at premieres.

This rarity also explains the attachment of Supergirl fans: every return of Cat Grant was an event because the actress herself almost never showed up anywhere else.

What she leaves to the Superman universe

Cat Grant has existed in the comics since 1987, but it's the series that made her a name known to the general public. James Gunn's Superman, released in 2025, in fact features Cat Grant at the Daily Planet, played by Mikaela Hoover: without the notoriety gained thanks to Calista Flockhart, it's not certain the character would have had that place.

She also leaves a model of female mentor that is rare in superhero series. Kara doesn't learn from her cousin, or from a surrogate father, but from a demanding boss who cuts her no slack. Our overview of women of the Superman universe shows how uncommon this type of character is.

Finally, she proved that an established star could join a superhero series without condescension. Her commitment in season 1 gave Supergirl a credibility that CW series didn't always have.

For many viewers, the formula fits in one sentence: Melissa Benoist made Supergirl, Calista Flockhart made the series.

Conclusion

Calista Flockhart was full-time on Supergirl for only one season, and yet her Cat Grant remained one of its pillars. Formidable boss, mentor in spite of herself, first to guess Kara's secret and last to collect her confession, she gave the series an adult character in a genre that lacks them.

The first big-screen Supergirl, Helen Slater, plays Kara's adoptive mother in the series: see our article on Supergirl (1984). And for the comic that inspired the 2026 film, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.

Her step back, dictated by family life more than by the scripts, left a void that the series filled without ever replacing her. That may be the finest tribute one can pay her.

To go further, our profile of Melissa Benoist tells the story of the other half of the duo, and our article on Superman TV shows places Supergirl within the history of television adaptations.