‘Gotham’ Adds ‘Southland’ Star Ben McKenzie As Jim Gordon
By Angie Han/Feb. 8, 2014 9:16 pm EST
In Gotham, Gordon is college football star and war hero turned rookie detective with the Gotham City Police Department. He’s idealistic “to the point of naiveté,” driven by a desire to live up to the standards of a father he barely knew, but he’s also “brave, energetic, and honest,” with a keen intelligence and an alpha-male ambition.
Though Gotham centers around Gordon, it also serves as an origin story for the city itself and for its most famous residents. That includes Bruce Wayne, who’ll be a 12-year-old boy at the start of the series, as well as the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, and Catwoman are expected to appear.
McKenzie has big shoes to fill. Gary Oldman most recently played Jim Gordon on the big screen in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and Pat Hingle previously portrayed him in Tim Burton’s 1989 film. Going back even further, Neil Hamilton played him on the ’60s Batman series.
Happily, there’s no reason to doubt he can fill them. McKenzie first broke out about a decade ago as Ryan Atwood in the hit teen drama The O.C., before moving onto the acclaimed but underseen Southland. That show ended last year after its fifth and final season. His big screen credits include Junebug, in which he played Amy Adams’ distant husband, and the upcoming romantic comedy How to Make Love Like an Englishman.
