‘Gotham’: New Artwork Teases “Wrath of the Villains”

January 25, 2016 3:00pm PT by Graeme McMillan

Now that they've risen, the bad guys in Jim Gordon's city are angry Courtesy of FOX

Now that they’ve risen, the bad guys in Jim Gordon’s city are angry

After their rise, get ready for the “Wrath of the Villains” as Gotham returns to Fox next month.

The new subtitle for the show — following on from “Rise of the Villains,” the subtitle from the first half of the Batman-inspired Fox show’s second season — arrives via the key art for the series’ return, which debuts exclusively by The Hollywood Reporter.

Quite which villains are out for vengeance remains a mystery — although it’s worth noting that Tabatha Galavan (Jessica Lucas) has a better argument than most of those appearing in the image; Gordon and Cobblepot (Ben McKenzie and Robin Lord Taylor) did, after all, team up to murder her brother in the show’s winter finale.

Also visible in both versions of the image is House of Cards‘ Nathan Darrow as Victor Fries, the scientist who’ll one day become Batman’s nemesis Mr. Freeze, who’ll be the focus of the show’s first episode of the year. As Gordon and Bullock (Donal Logue) investigate just why Fries is stealing bodies throughout the city, Cobblepot will have to face the music concerning the sad fate of Theo Galavan. But what does Jurassic World‘s B.D. Wong have to do with everything?

All — or, at least, some  —  will be revealed when Gotham returns Feb. 29.

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Graeme McMillan

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com

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‘Gotham’ Actor Breaks Down Flamingo’s Introduction: “There’s No Fear Inside Him”

November 16, 2015 6:00pm PT by Graeme McMillan

"There's a certain eroticism in his craft, which just so happens to be killing," Raul Castillo tells THR of the city's newest villain. Courtesy of FOX

“There’s a certain eroticism in his craft, which just so happens to be killing,” Raul Castillo tells THR of the city’s newest villain.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Monday’s episode of Gotham, “A Bitter Pill to Swallow”]

When Gotham needs to push Jim Gordon to the brink, it calls in the professionals. Still recovering from the season’s “rise of the villains” and last week’s confrontation with his ex-fiancee, Jim’s spirit almost broke this week when he had to deal with the attentions of Eduardo Flamingo, perhaps the city’s deadliest hitman.

Based on a comic book character who debuted in 2007’s Batman No. 666, Flamingo is not only known for his killer ways, but also his predilection for turning his victims into snacks. Played by Raul Castillo, the character marks a big departure from the actor’s last role, on the HBO series Looking. THR spoke to Castillo about playing Gotham‘s newest troublemaker.

Even in a season that’s had Jerome and Barbara being over-the-top in their own ways, Eduardo Flamingo still comes across as a wonderfully flamboyant bad guy. I really don’t think Jim Gordon was expecting to come face-to-face with someone like him.

To me, it’s appropriate that [the producers] chose now to introduce Eduardo to the world. The character of Gordon has been pushed to an extreme so far, and now the writers are bringing in the big guns — Eduardo’s this fantastic character who can take everything Gordon’s going through so far to the next level.

He really ends up pushing Jim’s buttons.

(Laughs.) Yes, he does.

Jim ends up going to this very intense place when he has the showdown with Eduardo. What was that like to shoot? Were you and Ben McKenzie squaring off between takes?

Ben is such a gentleman — we’re both Texas boys, so we kind of connected through that almost immediately — but when it came to our confrontation, we were grounded through this great fight choreography.

We got to play with this great fight that they had. It’s like a dance or a ballet, it’s its own kind of movement. We really worked together to find out what the conflict between these two men really was — the way that Eduardo can talk to Gordon, push his buttons and play with him. I tried my best to help that seem believable. Ben’s a great scene partner, I had a really good time working with him.

He seems like the type of character that’s maybe not fun to play, per se, but he’s certainly fun to watch.

His theatricality and flamboyance were a lot of fun to play with. I read for the role and was starting to put the character together — luckily, we have Google these days, so I was able to find out a lot, as well as read the comic books. It was really, really exciting to tap into that darker side of things. I haven’t had a chance to play a character like this before. Because it’s the first time that we’re seeing this character represented in any medium outside of the comics, as far as I know, I had this great blank canvas to work with, and all these different elements to bring in.

In some ways, he feels like the next generation of what the show’s been doing in terms of villains all year. He’s got the theatricality of Jerome, but he’s even more dangerous. Jerome was insane, but Eduardo knows exactly what he’s doing.

Absolutely. He’s vicious and there’s no fear inside him.

He seems to really enjoy what he does, as well. Beyond the whole “eating people” thing, I mean.

I think there’s a certain sensuality to the way he approaches killing that I latched onto. There’s a certain eroticism in his craft, which just so happens to be killing. He finds great pleasure in that, and I found that really fun to explore.

We keep on coming back to this being fun, despite Eduardo being this terrible villain, a cannibal hitman…

There’s so much about working on Gotham that felt like being a kid, and playing in a way that I hadn’t been able to since I was young. As a kid — I think we all do this, we all played cops and robbers, heroes and villains, and Gotham had the same fun as that, for me. Of course, there’s a darker element now in this character, but I was able to find a lot of joy in playing the character. It’s so much fun, and very liberating.

So, should we expect to see more from Eduardo in future episodes?

I don’t know, but I really, really hope so! (Laughs.) I want to explore more of who this character is. He’s so fascinating to me and we just scratched the surface. I want to know more about his background — he has this really interesting history [in the comic books] that I’d be curious to see how the creative team at Gotham would ‘Gotham-ize‘ it — what made him such a ruthless character. There’s so much more to play with! I’d be over the moon to be given the opportunity to do more with him.

Does Gotham need more Flamingo in its future? Leave your comments below. Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

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Graeme McMillan

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com

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‘Gotham’s’ Erin Richards on Why Barbara Can’t Let Jim Gordon Go

November 09, 2015 6:00pm PT by Graeme McMillan

"She wants to bring him into her dark place so they can have fabulous sex and cause trouble," the actress tells THR. Nicole Rivelli/FOX

“She wants to bring him into her dark place so they can have fabulous sex and cause trouble,” the actress tells THR.

[Warning: This story contains spoilers for Monday’s episode of Gotham, “Tonight’s the Night”]

After remaining in the background for most of season two, Monday’s Gotham allowed Barbara Kean — former fiancé of Jim Gordon turned murderer and all-round bad influence — to come to the forefront and create trouble for everyone around her … including herself, after tumbling from a building and ending up in critical condition in hospital.

To Erin Richards, who plays Barbara, that’s only a mild setback in her character’s new goal in life — which, despite appearances, isn’t doing the bidding of current series big bad Theo Galavan. The Hollywood Reporter asked Richards about Barbara’s new outlook on life, why she can’t let Jim Gordon go and where she’d like to see the character end up (Hint: The White House).

Normally I’d ask what happens next for your character, but Barbara ended the episode with a fairly definitive moment …

Well, she’s fallen out of a window and is in critical condition. Which is trouble for her. (Laughs.) There is something very fun that happens in episode 13.

Barbara has changed so much from the really restrained version that appeared in the pilot …

When she was “Old Barbara,” she was so constrained in her life, she felt like a caged animal because she had all these people surrounding her that she didn’t — not that she didn’t trust them, but she didn’t get anything from them. She kept asking Jim to let her into his life, and he wasn’t, and she obviously wasn’t part of her parents’ lives, even Montoya wasn’t letting her in anymore, so she just felt trapped. And now she’s this new, dark being, and she can do whatever the hell she wants. She’s the most free, dark, fun version of herself, and she’s loving it.

Did you have any input into creating “new Barbara”?

I like to think that the new Barbara came from me as a person. Old Barbara is not really very similar to me, and — not that I would ever stab my parents! — but new Barbara is much freer, wilder, funner and closer to who I am or would want to be in my life. Someone who isn’t scared to say what they mean or do what they want.

I love that you reassure that you wouldn’t stab your parents. So, no confronting exes in terrifying ways either, I assume?

That scene in the wedding dress that I filmed with Ben [McKenzie] and Morena [Baccarin] was so much fun to film. I feel so wild playing Barbara, I feel like I could do anything. It’s sometimes a little scary because I feel like she could lash out and do anything, and I’ve got all these props in my hands: I’ve got guns and knives, and I think, “Do people really want to trust me with these things? I’m Barbara right now.”

Why does Barbara still feel drawn to Jim? Doesn’t he represent her old life? Wouldn’t she just want to move on?

No! Jim is her ultimate. She’s seeing the world through these new eyes and thinking, “This is fantastic, I’m dark, I’m having fun, I get to run around using people and just relying on my base instincts!” She loves it so much that she wants to suck everybody into it. She thinks that the more people who are in her darkness, the more fun it is.

She wants to go back and tell Jim, “Listen, we were a great couple. I knew there was darkness within you, because otherwise we wouldn’t have been together in the start anyway.” She wants to pull him out of this goody-goody cop that he’s pretending to be and bring him into her dark place so they can have fabulous sex and cause trouble in this new dark world together. (Laughs.) She wants to play with that, she wants to bring it out of him in the most crazy, violent way that she can, so that she can explode him open. She’s so frustrated by who he’s pretending to be.

You make it sound like she’s trying to help him.

It’s for his own good! If she could go out into the whole world and make them like her, she would. For her, she thinks this is a level everybody should be on. She’s completely instinctual. Anything she wants, she’ll do, which is surely how everyone wants to live their lives, but we can’t, because of jobs and whatever else. She’s doing it because she cares! She should be president. Barbara Kean for president! (Laughs.)

How do Theo and Tabitha Galavan fit into this, then? Are they part of Barbara’s darkness?

With Tabitha, I think there’s an intrigue there. Tabitha is a powerful woman and she has all these skills, and Barbara — if you think of her as having just come out of an egg as this new person, she needs to learn, she’s kind of curious and excited and needs to learn all the different tools she can use in this new world. She thinks Tabitha is the one who can teach her that.

The relationship with Theo Galavan — she’s very aware that she doesn’t really have the means right now to do what she wants, especially to get Jim, so she needs to find the most powerful element in Gotham right now. I think Barbara’s superpower is that she knows everybody’s weaknesses and use that fully against them on purpose, and Galavan’s weakness is that he wants to be the most powerful person, he wants to feel as if everyone is working for him, so she’ll fill that role for now, until he is no longer useful.

Can you imagine her moving on to other villains in the show?

I would love her to hook up with some other villains! Once the Galavan story plays out, I think there might be potentially different people coming in and different things happening for her. I just want her to have as much fun as she can have.

To hear you talk, I’m beginning to wonder if Barbara is actually the real villain of the series.

Potentially. Wouldn’t that be fun? (Laughs.)

Could Barbara go from being the hero’s unhappy, sidelined girlfriend to the show’s biggest bad guy? Leave your takes in the comments below. Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on Fox.

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Graeme McMillan

Graeme McMillan

THRnews@thr.com

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