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The final season of The Flash will see American actress Nicole Maines reprising her Supergirl role as Nia Nal aka Dreamer. This news was earlier reported by TVLine and fans are ecstatic about her comeback.
The talented 25-year-old actress has previously appeared in Royal Pains, Good Trouble, Darby and the Dead, and many more shows and movies.
Nicole Maines shot to prominence with her portrayal of Nia Nal on The CW superhero series Supergirl in the fourth, fifth and sixth seasons. She was the first to portray a transgender superhero on television.
Here are some more details about the American actress and her upcoming role in The Flash.
Nicole Maines has an identical twin brother named Jonas Maines
Born on 7 October 1997, Maines and her identical twin Jonas were adopted by Kelly and Wayne Maines in 1997. One of the twins’ biological parents was Kelly's second cousin.
Commenting on her latest addition to The Flash franchise, showrunner and executive producer Eric Wallace in a recent interview said:
"As Supergirl fans ourselves, all of us here on The Flash are SUPER-excited to have Nicole join Team Flash for a one-off adventure as we put together our final season."
He further added:
"Nicole Maines is a fantastically talented actress and I’m so happy she’s agreed to be part of a very special Season 9 episode where I get to cross off one of my 'Arrowverse Bucket List' team-ups: Having two fantastic reporters — Iris West-Allen (Candice Patton) and Nia Nal — investigate their own very bizarre and frightening mystery."
Although Nicole Maines was biologically male at birth, she showed signs of gender variance at a very early age. She preferred playing with toys intended for girls and related to female characters in cartoons and movies.
She was just 3 when she realized she was not a boy and started getting straightforward about her gender with her adopted parents by the time she turned 4.
She later adopted the name Nicole (Nikki for short) after the character Nicole Bristow, one of Zoey's sidekicks on the Nickelodeon show Zoey 101.
A month after graduating from high school in 2015, she underwent gender-affirming surgery in Philadelphia.
A brief introduction to her career
Maines and her family's story was covered in a book by Washington Post writer Amy Ellis Nutt called Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family in 2015. She even appeared on the USA Network show Royal Pains as a transgender teen whose health was getting affected because of her hormones.
She was one of the 11 individuals featured in an HBO documentary titled The Trans List in 2016.
Her big break came in 2018 when she was cast as Nia Nal, in The CW series Supergirl. Maines was a regular on the show from the fourth to the final season.
In 2019, Nicole Maines won the highest acting prize at the Outfest Los Angeles LGBTQ Film Festival for her role in a horror movie about queer female vampires titled Bit.
In a recent interview, CW Entertainment President Brad Schwartz spoke highly about the show, saying:
"The Flash will be remembered as one of the greatest shows in the history of The CW, and everyone involved in its excellent nine-season run should be very proud."
Apart from acting, Nicole Maines has penned several comic books, including her own character from Supergirl, Nia Nal/Dreamer, and also co-wrote the script for Dreamer's debut in the comic Superman: Son of Kal-El.
