Interview: Ben McKenzie Talks GOTHAM's Gordon, Stunts, Facial Hair

One of the most buzzed about premieres of this fall TV season has been Fox's Batman-prequel GOTHAM. The first episode aired last night, and you can read Jeffrey Walker's recap here. Recently I participated in a conference call with GOTHAM star Ben McKenzie.

McKenzie (THE O.C., SOUTHLAND) plays Detective James Gordon, who goes on to be Gotham City's legendary Commissioner Gordon. McKenzie discusses playing police officers in very different shows, the draw of comic books shows and movies, and Gordon's iconic facial hair.

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Can you talk about what it first was that kind of attracted you to the part? I mean, were you a fan of this kind of genre in the beginning?

You know, in all honesty, I worked with Bruno Heller last year on a pilot. SOUTHLAND was ending, we did a pilot for CBS that Warner Brothers produced and it didn't go to series, and so Bruno called me this year, January or February of this year, and said, "I have a script that I've written. I'd like to send it to you, I've written the part of Jim Gordon with you in mind and I'd like you to take a look." So it kind of started from that.

As far as the attraction, the opportunity to work with Bruno again was top of the list. We had a very good time on the pilot, and we really see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, our sensibilities are similar. It's both exciting to be a part of this kind of mythology that's been around for 75 years, but it's also a bit daunting. So, I would say it was both an attraction, and a cause for a series of meetings to talk about how exactly this would work, and how we wouldn't screw it up, and how I wouldn't embarrass myself completely, and all those sorts of things, which they more or less assured me, Bruno and Danny Cannon more or less assured me that worst case it would only mildly fail. It wouldn't be a huge disaster, so that was pretty much how it all came to be. I'm a fan of Batman, but not a hardcore fan.

Could you talk about what the differences or similarities are in being a law officer in the city of GOTHAM and the LA hood of SOUTHLAND?

Well, that's a good question. The overall similarity is probably in the mentality of law enforcement officers. The sense of wanting to really uphold a sense of morality, and make sure that the laws are enforced to the letter, whenever possible.

I just got an email from the guy that did some of our tactical training on SOUTHLAND, he was a cop in LAPD, just congratulating me on GOTHAM. They captured a serial killer recently who was on the run in LA, blowing people away with shotguns. There's bad stuff that happens in real life. In GOTHAM, it's more, we want to keep the sense of realism, but at the same time it is fantastical and it is meant to be a little bit more approachable in the sense that it's not so starkly drawn.

In SOUTHLAND it was much more, it was so real, that I think at times it could be quite frightening. We don't want to acknowledge that people do terrible, terrible things to each other. In GOTHAM, I think we want to have a little bit more fun with it. We want to feel free to take a certain amount of liberty with tactical stuff, and just kind of give it more of a, sort of a, throwback to kind of an old school gumshoe show, noir kind of conceit, with a little bit of cop tactics in it, if that makes any sense.

Gordon is famous for, among other things, his moustache. Were there any conversations about making you grow out that facial hair in the first season or are you leaving that aside for now?

I had lengthy conversations with Bruno and Danny about everything else. Lengthy, lengthy conversations about all sorts of things, meeting after meeting. And then as soon as it hit the internet that I was doing it, it felt like all anyone wanted to talk about was whether I would have a moustache or not. I thought about ringing Bruno and being like, "Uh, one last thing I forgot to-"

We just literally never talked about it. And then I brought it up to him and he goes, "No, that would look ridiculous on you. We're not doing that." You know, it's 20 years before he can grow into the maturity and wisdom that it takes to sport a moustache, and that's the line we're sticking to. Maybe 20 years from now the moustache will feel, you know, earned.

I can grow it. For the record, I can grow the moustache. If you think that I can't, you should watch JUNEBUG. So it's not, I'm not afraid of the moustache, I just don't feel it's appropriate for the image.

I was wondering how much of your own stunt work do you actually handle, and are stunts a major part of the show?

I try to handle as much as I can, as much as I feel comfortable with. We have a great stunt team lead by Norman Douglas, our stunt coordinator. I do as much as I can. Stunts are, or action is a big part of the show. That being said, it's all coming from (an) aesthetic conceit of the world that we're portraying being more swift and brutal than it is operatic and grandiose.

You know, if Jim is in a fight, he wants to get it over with as quickly as possible and take out whoever he has to take out as swiftly and efficiently as possible. So it's more in the, kind of, brutal military fashion than it is more kung-fu style acrobatic stuff.

There hasn't been a lot of wirework and things like that yet. We may get to that point, but I would prefer that this guy is portrayed for what I think Bruno, Danny, and I agree he is, which is an old school hero... just a man, completely fallible, who can't jump over buildings or fly through the air. He has to use what he's got and he has to occasionally lose.

I think that grounds it in more of a sense of reality. So that's kind of what we're aiming for, but, that being said, each passing episode, the fight scenes get more and more complicated, so we may end up there anyway.

So GOTHAM has a lot of really excellent female characters in positions of power. Can you tell us a little bit about Gordon's relationships with his boss, Sara and with baddie Fish?

Absolutely. You're right, there are a lot of powerful (female) characters in GOTHAM, and I think what's kind of great about GOTHAM, is that we can portray a society that is similar to ours, perhaps, but in which there is no even understanding of racism or sexism, it's all just whoever is battling for power in a city that's completely fallen, and Fish Mooney is really good at it. She's an enforcer for Carmine and she's really tough, she's really smart, she uses her sex appeal to get what she wants, and Jada (Pinkett-Smith) just kills it. She's just really, really strong and powerful and interesting and funny, at times.

And then Essen, Captain Essen, played by Zabryna (Guevara), is kind of stuck in a hard place, because as captain of the GCPD, she has to answer to a number of different bosses, not just her superiors in the department, but effectively, in some senses, the mob themselves, because they have such deep ties to the police department and to the mayor's office that sometimes her hands are tied. That being said, she wants to catch whatever criminal we're chasing in that particular week, and she wants to support her detectives, and so over time, Gordon sort of earns her respect and her trust and her support, and eventually, you'll see down the line, she'll put herself out on a limb for him.

Some of the first season is Jim figuring out which COPS in the department he can trust, and which ones he can't, and there's some surprising twists and turns in those relationships. Some people that you would think would be his enemies are actually kindred spirits, and he needs to assemble a team, going forward, that he can actually use to bring justice.

I'm wondering, what you think is the reason that comic books have really taken off over the last few years on television and film?

I don't know. I guess I would say, at this point, 75 years into Batman, (that) comics have kind of become American folklore. They're sort of what we have as a newer country to pass down from generation to generation, and to evolve from generation to generation, to fit the society in which we live. And Batman is a really interesting example that... he is a vigilante, fighting for justice in an unjust world. And I think there's an awful lot of cynicism around us, and so we can all relate to the idea of having this caped crusader out there fighting for us, and fighting for justice.

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If you saw the GOTHAM series premiere, do you think McKenzie adequately stepped into Gordon's rather large shoes? Let me know what you think in the comments below, or on Twitter @BWWMatt. Also, don't forget to follow @BWWTVWorld on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for all of the latest TV news, reviews, and recaps.

Photo Credit: Jessica Miglio | FOX

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