Despite the much more well known names of Rosamund Pike, Alice Eve and interestingly German born Diane Kruger being linked with the part - Variety say it will actually be German actress Antje Traue who will play the villainess Faora in Zack Snyder's Superman reboot Man of Steel. Traue you will know as the woman Anthony Hopkins exorcises in The Rite and she also appeared in the sci-fi film Pandorum a few years ago. She certainly has the look and I'm much more in favour of an unknown playing these Kryptonian alien parts than an actress like Pike whose presence will be soured by the kind of roles we've seen her play in so many films. Faora is described in David Goyer's script as Zods right hand bitch and the trades claim the character will closely skew the one that debuted in Action Comics #779 as a Pokolistanian aide of General Zod, who excitedly will be portrayed by Michael Shannon. In that story Faora was "an orphan metahuman with the ability to disrupt molecular bonds, which allowed her to create a mutagenic virus that served as the linchpin of Zod's plan" - which is slightly different to the character of Ursa, portrayed by Sarah Douglas in the Richard Donner movies, an original character very much influenced by Faora. Here's wiki's take on Faora;
Faora Hu-Ul was a serial killer born on the planet Krypton. A self-professed man-hater, she targeted only male Kryptonians and ran a concentration camp where she kept other Kryptonians as slaves. Faora Hu-Ul claimed over twenty-three lives before she was arrested. Faora was sentenced to over three-hundred years of incarceration inside the Phantom Zone the longest sentence ever handed to a female prisoner, and the second-longest sentence over all. As Faora was trapped inside the Phantom Zone, she, along with many others, survived the destruction of Krypton. Faora was an expert at the Kryptonian martial art of Horo-Kanu, which utilized the pressure points on the Kryptonian body. This made her an extremely dangerous foe for Superman to face in hand-to-hand combathe was forced to flee from their first encounter.
Zack Snyder films Man of Steel in Chicago this summer with an impressive cast; Henry Cavill as Clark, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannon as Zod, Ante Traue as Faora, Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent and Diane Lane as Martha Kent. Can we expect the presence of Non too, Zod's male aid who was played by Jack O'Halloran in the two Donner movies?