Looking back on Fox’s hit show “Glee,” it’s hard to remember every standout musical number; after all, there were hundreds of them. But there’s one that Becca Tobin, who played Kitty Wilde from Season 4 onward, remembers quite vividly — and not for the best reasons.
In the seventh episode of Season 4, titled “Dynamic Duets,” Kitty teams up with Melissa Benoist’s character, Marley Rose, for a high-energy cover of “Holding Out for a Hero.” For this assignment, the kids are tasked with creating their own superhero personas; Marley becomes Wallflower and Kitty becomes Catwoman, donning a full catsuit in the process. Unfortunately, that catsuit proved to be quite the struggle.
“Performing that was one of the most stressful experiences of my entire career,” Tobin admitted to TheWrap. “It was like, one of my first weeks on TV, it was one of our first episodes, Melissa and myself. I’m wearing a latex suit, head to toe, and I had to put baby powder all over my body to just get into it. Cory Monteith is like two feet away, and all these people who I barely knew and I just wanted to impress. And I’m dancing, I’m doing splits, I’m singing, and all of a sudden, it rips all the way up the side, the latex suit.”
That’s not even the worst part. Because when you’re in a latex suit, even baby powder can’t entirely prevent sweat. So when that suit popped open, Tobin remembers her own sweat shot out, hitting some of her costars.
“And I’m like, ‘This is the most mortifying experience of my life.’ Everybody was so incredible and so lovely. They whisked me away, they put on a new suit, and then we finished it,” Tobin said. “But that performance is one that I’m most proud of — so thank you for appreciating it — and also have the fondest memories of, because that’s one of the best stories I’ve ever had on TV. So I love it.”
While the pair’s performance of the Bonnie Tyler hit was a bit traumatizing for Tobin in the moment, it was also incredible foreshadowing for Benoist, who went on to star in The CW’s “Supergirl” as the titular hero. That’s because in the “Glee” episode, Kitty convinced Marley to ditch her Wallflower persona and instead dubbed her Woman Fierce, encouraging her to step into her power. And that pose looked an awful lot like her current Supergirl pose. So yes, Tobin will happily accept any piece of credit for that manifestation.
“You know what, I think you’re right. I really did, I set her up for success there,” Tobin said with a laugh. “I was like, ‘You can be a superhero.’ And I think my character even gave her a pep talk in the bathroom at the high school. So I wanna say, I am very much responsible for Supergirl. You’re welcome.”
Little did we know that a couple of years after you and Becca Tobin performed I Need A Hero on Glee that you would be the Superhero that we all needed when you became Supergirl in 2015! That was perfect casting by the producers of Glee to have you perform that song with Becca! You were fantastic on Glee and even more phenomenal during these last six seasons portraying the Girl of Steel!