- Maria Bakalova wants to continue playing Princess Ilana in the DCU
- The Creature Commandos star says she “wants to see her exist” in another James Gunn project
- Bakalova’s comments come after season 1’s blood-soaked finale, which Ilana was involved in
Maria Bakalova has expressed her desire to continue playing Princess Ilana in the DC Universe (DCU), even though it’s incredibly unlikely that the character will return.
Speaking exclusively to TechRadar ahead of Creature Commandos‘ season 1 finale, Bakalova admitted she wasn’t ready to bid farewell to Pokolistan’s monarch-in-waiting. However, given what transpires in season 1’s seventh episode, titled ‘A Very Funny Monster’, Bakalova’s desire to continue playing Ilana seems like a pipedream.
Full spoilers immediately follow for Creature Commandos season 1 episode 7!
In the final few minutes of this season’s final chapter, which you can read about in more detail in Creature Commandos season 1 ending explained article, Ilana is killed in cold blood by The Bride. Minutes earlier, Ilana had carried out her own murder, with the Pokolistani royal family member killing Nina Mazursky, aka one of the titular team’s members and the closest thing that The Bride had to a friend. As Baklova told me, Ilana ended Nina’s life “to protect herself” after Nina attempted to assassinate Ilana under ARGUS chief and Task Force M handler Amanda Waller’s instructions.
Alright, but why was the eponymous group tasked with killing Ilana? Remember, in the Max series’ fourth episode, Amazonian sorceress Circe warned Waller – by way of a premonition – that Ilana wanted to conquer planet Earth and turn Pokolistan into a tyrannical global superpower.
That plot twist in episode 4, which is also revealed the DCU’s Justice League for the first time (albeit dead at the hands of Pokolistan’s armed forces), completely changed viewers’ perceptions of Ilana. It’s a moment that Bakalova previously told me was “an interesting reveal” for Ilana’s evolution as a character, which is an understated way of describing Ilana’s heel-turn.
Unfortunately, it seems that we’ll never know why Ilana had plans on world domination, nor what drove her to be such a diabolical individual. That said, characters in comic books and their multimedia adaptations – DC or otherwise – have a tendency of coming back to life in some form. There’s no reason, then, why Ilana couldn’t return, even if it’s in a flashback sequence in the recently announced Creature Commandos season 2 or another DCU Chapter One project.
That’s the hope that Bakalova is clinging onto. Indeed, when I asked the Borat 2 and Marvel star (she voiced Cosmo in Guardians of the Galaxy 3) if there was ever a situation – via an earlier script or a conversation with DC Studios co-head James Gunn – where her femme fatale turned wannabe dictator might have survived, Bakalova confirmed that wasn’t the case. However, she’s not given up hope on voicing Ilana again in the future.
“I’m going to be completely transparent,” Bakalova said. “I do want her to exist in the future. As an actor, I want to continue playing this role, and I’m really interested in seeing how audiences react to that [Ilana’s death]. If viewers want to see more of her, maybe that’s a reason to talk about it [her return] and, if not, maybe I just need to sit tight! We make these shows for people, so it’s important to listen to their opinions.”
As for what Bakalova would like to explore if one of the best Max shows’ most notable original character is brought back in some guise, the actor said: “I want to know how she ended up being who she is today, why she wants to destroy the world, and why she wants so much power. What pushes someone to have such evil dreams about world domination? What, in her early life, drove her to become such a monster?
“At the end of it all, she’s the biggest monster of all in the show,” she continued. “The Creature Commandos are monsters by circumstance or the way that they look. Ilana is this beautiful, seemingly innocent human who commits monstrous acts of violence. Why is that? I’d like to find out in the future so, if James ever asked me to return, whether it’s for one episode, a whole season, or even just a cameo, I’d do it. I just want my badass princess to be back from the dead already!”
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