FOX’s highly-anticipated new series Gotham premieres tonight at 8PM (ET), and in preparation for the show’s premiere, the show’s lead, Ben McKenzie, who plays Detective James Gordon, spoke with press in a conference call last week.
Among the topics discussed was the notion that this isn’t Ben’s first rodeo with Batman history: He also provided the lead voice for the Dark Knight himself in the Batman: Year One animated feature in 2011, three years before getting the role of Batman’s trusted man on the police force in Gotham.
Did that past knowledge and experience with Bat-lore affect or help with what he was doing with Gotham?
“I’ve always been a fan of Year One, even before I did the voice of Bruce, Batman, for it,” McKenzie said, “so it was an opportunity to reread it as an adult and look more closely at it in terms of how to interpret it on screen, albeit just my voice, not my body. So I would say it certainly pulled me in a little bit closer, and then when Gotham came about, and Geoff Johns sent me a bunch of literature, including Gotham Central and Long Halloween and the like,” he continued.
“I think it certainly helps to understand what this is all coming out of, and what it’s all coming out of is, of course, the comics that have evolved wildly over 75 years,” he added. “So, I think you pick certain reference points, at least stylistically, and then you need to go out and do what you would do on any other job, which is to work on the script and work with the directors and your fellow actors to breathe those scenes to life, playing your beats and playing your objective. Not really doing anything different than you would do on any other job except that you know that there’s a certain heightened style to it, if that makes any sense. So that’s basically what I do, he explained.
Gotham also pairs McKenzie, who played Bruce Wayne in animation at that point in his life, with David Mazouz, the young actor who is bringing an even younger version of Bruce Wayne to life in live-action. What is it like working with Mazouz? “David is amazing,” McKenzie enthused.
“David is a really terrific actor, he really is. He listens, which is an incredibly hard thing to teach anyone, and it’s something that I struggle with now, any actor struggles with. It’s the hardest thing to do on camera, I think. With all the chaos of the film set, TV set, is to just listen to what the other actor is saying to you, and how they’re saying it in that moment, from take to take, and he does. He’s terrific, and he couldn’t be a nicer young man. He was obviously raised correctly, and he’s perfect for Bruce, so that was easy, too. He’s more calm than I am, I’m kind of blown away sometimes,” he said.
Gotham premieres tonight (September 22) at 8PM on FOX. Visit our Gotham portal, GothamSite, for more about the show, including photos, videos, and more interview material with Ben McKenzie!
