To mark the 100th anniversary of Batman this past Saturday, Warner Bros. and Fox announced that they had cast Ben McKenzie in Gotham. The series will focus on a young Detective Jim Gordon as he investigates the murder of Martha and Thomas Wayne. Several notable Batman villains will also be featured, with the first of those among today’s casting announcement.
After Earth’s Robin Lord Taylor will play Oswald Cobblepot, a character better known as The Penguin. With the brains of a chess grandmaster and the morals of a jackal, Cobblepot is a low-level psychopath for gangster Fish Mooney, and hides his sadistic lust for power behind an exquisitely polite demeanor.
Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler, will be played by Sean Pertwee, most recently seen in Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. A tough-as-nails ex-marine from East London, Pennyworth has loyally served the Wayne family. Now, in the wake of their tragic deaths, he’s fiercely protective of the young Bruce Wayne — the boy who will eventually become Batman.
Finally, Zabryna Guevara (Marley & Me) has joined the cast as Captain Essen, Detective Gordon’s boss at the Gotham City Police Department Homicide Squad. Essen balances the two worlds of police and politics with a Machiavellian skill that’s as much corporate litigator as cop. Finally, Welsh actress Erin Richards (Being Human) will play Barbara Kean, Gordon’s fiancee and a sophisticated emergency doctor. Kean stands by her husband amid the corrupt world of Gotham.
That’s quite a cast they’re assembling in a series which will clearly be full of recognisable comic book characters. The fact that Cobblepot is just a low-level enforcer of some sort in Gotham may give us an idea of what we should expect from the other iconic villains that the show will feature. Clearly, we’ll be catching up with them long before they take up the persona’s used in their battles with The Caped Crusader!
What do you think about these latest casting additions?
