The DC Comics Star You Missed In The Little Things
With 2021 well underway, Warner Bros. is wasting no time in implementing its eyebrow-raising hybrid release model for its latest blockbusters. On January 29, crime thriller The Little Things will arrive via the HBO Max streaming service for a whole month, as well as the scant few cinemas with their door stills open. The film stars Denzel Washington as Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon, who teams up with Rami Malek's Detective Baxter to take down a serial killer that's running amok throughout Los Angeles. Their dysfunctional investigation leads them to pin the shifty Albert Sparma as their lead suspect — a character portrayed by Jared Leto (with a little help from an unexpected source).
Given his résumé, Leto is an excellent choice to take on the part of Sparma. He has appeared in a handful of projects over the past few years, often impressing viewers with his performances in villainous toles. The most talked-about of the bunch came in director David Ayer's Suicide Squad from 2016, where he traded in acid-shooting flowers and Jack-in-the-boxes for grills and forehead tattoos for his controversial rendition of the Joker. Even still, it's undeniable that he left his mark on the landscape of DC Comics-based movies, for better or worse.
Coincidentally, he's not the only alum of DC media to make an appearance in The Little Things. A frequent face from their television productions also signed on for this film that you might miss at first glance.
Sofia Vassilieva is a DC TV mainstay
The Little Things features a character by the name of Tina Salvatore, an individual with virtually no information about her floating around on the internet at the time of this writing. However, the opposite holds for the actress behind her, Sofia Vassilieva, whose well-documented career on screens big and small goes back two decades. In this period, she has managed to pop up all over DC media, securing roles on three different TV programs, each more substantial than the last.
Vassilieva's introduction to the DC universe came in 2016, where she portrayed Debra McCall for one episode of Lucifer, titled "The Would-Be Prince of Darkness." She followed it with a couple of spots on the CW's Supergirl across 2017 and 2018 for the season 3 installments "The Faithful" and "The Fanatical." In this series, she played Olivia, a fangirl of the titular Kryptonian turned Cult of Rao member, who took her passion for the superheroine a bit too far.
Finally, in Black Lightning season 2 episodes "The Book of Blood: Chapter Two: The Perdi" and "The Book of Blood: Chapter Three: The Sange," she arrived as Emily Briggs, also known by her evil alter-ego, Looker.
These roles may not be the most remarkable in the superhero genre, but it's evident that Sofia Vassilieva's opportunities continue to improve with time. Whether or not she'll reemerge in the DC realm in the future remains up in the air, so until then, fans can at least watch her in The Little Things, where she'll continue to put her acting talents to good use.