The "mystery girl" in Season 4 of The Flash had many folks speculating her true identity, although the show's latest addition to the Flash family, Jessica Parker Kennedy, was not one of them. Kennedy confessed to CinemaBlend and others at a roundtable at San Diego Comic-Con she knew her character was the future child of Barry and Iris months before the reveal, and it became her cross to bear. Kennedy said hiding the secret of Nora West-Allen wasn't easy, especially when the cast was just as rampant as the fans in wanting to know all her character's secrets.
Yeah, I knew for months. It was a really stressful thing to not talk about. Also, because Costumes didn't know, and there was still some cast that didn't know. So it was awful, because I was there, and they were like, 'Tell us who you are, tell us who you are.' And I was like, 'I think if I tell you who I am, I might get fired before I really even get started. So yeah, I knew for a long time.
Jessica Parker Kennedy made her first official appearance in the Arrow-verse during the mega-crossover "Crisis on Earth-X." The character would make three more on-screen appearances before her official reveal in the Season 4 finale, which meant there was a fair stretch of time Kennedy was on The Flash set keeping her secret. Surprisingly, the cast and even the costume department were in the dark about Kennedy playing Barry and Iris' daughter, so the actress implied she got little peace as people bombarded with questions about her character.
As for how much the writers told Kennedy about what Nora would be doing on The Flash, the actress confirmed she was told "quite a bit." Fortunately, there was such a gap between her initial conversation with the writers and when she went to work as Nora she forgot most of it, which had to alleviate some of the pressure of spilling the beans to co-stars:
To be really honest with you, they told me quite a bit. And then it was so long before I ended up working and doing it, that I kind of forgot a lot. And it wasn't until I went to the writers room the other day and got refreshed, and got more details about what's going on. So now I know most of the season, and what's going on, but they told it to me in a flash. They told me as fast as they could possibly tell me, so I was trying to take all of it in. There's so much in every season.
The good news is The Flash fans at least know a bit of what Jessica Parker Kennedy knows now, as past news on Season 5 has revealed Nora will do quite a bit of bonding with her parents. We also know Barry will be concerned with Nora's dabbling in time travel and worried his daughter might accidentally erase herself from existence. Of course, there are still plenty of other things we don't know about Nora that we'd like to discover, but perhaps fans should give Kennedy a chance to relax and give her a break on questions until the season actually gets started.
The Flash returns to The CW Tuesday, October 9, at 8:00 p.m. Keep tabs on what other superhero shows are premiering in the near future with our superhero premiere guide and get the big picture of what's coming to television with our summer and fall premiere guide.
