GOTHAM at TCA: Live-Blog

The new Fox drama, GOTHAM, is about to have their Television Critics Association press tour panel.

Follow along for what the cast and producers have to say…

10:54 AM: We’re seeing a GOTHAM sizzle reel. Yep, still gorgeous.

10:56 AM: EP Bruno Heller admits you have to “front-load the pilot” with the best that you’ve got, and the pilot has four villains. He says they’ll roll them out differently as the show moves forward, and it will be slower.

10:57 AM: Ben McKenzie says he’s trying to bring the strength and training he got from SOUTHLAND to GOTHAM. The GOTHAM world is heightened, though.

10:58 AM: “That’s the situation the show is all about: how do you deal with crime of this level when there are no superheroes; there are just ordinary men and women,” Heller says of introducing all these villains, but being a decade away from Batman appearing.

11:00 AM: “Gordon is a moral linchpin,” Heller says of the focus of the show. The focus will be on the cast, but Gordon is a very important part.

11:01 AM: “It’s not a whole new mythology…you name any mythological hero, and there are contradictions in the story: that’s when you reach that kind of level of myth, that all these stories can be told,” Heller says.

11:04 AM: McKenzie points out that in Greek tragedies, they often tell you the fate of the characters, but people still watch — it’s about the journey of how these characters get there.

“There’s victories along the way, and there is hope along the way,” Heller says of Gordon’s struggle to rid the city of evil, even though viewers will know he can’t totally succeed on his own.

11:06 AM: “I’ve gone back into the comic books and researched online,” Camren Bicondova says of researching Selena. She notes that her character doesn’t know that she’ll be Catwoman one day — all she knows is that she loves cats.

Cory Michael Smith hasn’t seen BATMAN FOREVER, but he’s reading the comics to learn more about the Riddler.

“I watched BATMAN RETURNS like 500 times as a kid,” Robin Lord Taylor says of studying for becoming The Penguin.

11:09 AM: Heller says that the superhero of the story is Gotham, the city. He doesn’t think the fanboys will back away from the series, because he’s interested in the origin stories.

11:11 AM: “I think all Batman ideas and all Gotham ideas are floating around in the universe…it would be arrogant to say I came up with this idea,” Heller says. “I took it out of the ether.”

11:13 AM: Jada Pinkett Smith credits Heller and director Danny Cannon have been instrumental in helping her nail her deliciously evil character, Fish Mooney.

11:16 AM: “I think violence, if we show it, should be disturbing…it shouldn’t be comical,” Heller says of the violence in the show. He allows that the violence for what is acceptable to show to society has risen. Heller points out his son is more adult now than kids were when he was a child, given how media has matured us. He thinks it’s up to individual parents on what they’ll let their children watch.

“The reason that Batman and Gotham is so powerful around the world…is because people need some place to express their dark side of the world,” Heller says. But he says they want to tell this story responsibly.

11:20 AM: Cannon says he looked at a lot of pop rock photos for inspirations for the series. “This is the first pilot I’ve worked on that I’ve treated like a movie,” Cannon says. He sketched out the way he wanted the show to look.

11:22 AM: “I think women make very interesting villains,” Pinkett Smith says. “I think oftentimes what drives a woman is very different from what we’re used to seeing…there are corners to a woman’s darkness that are not seen very often, that can be terrifying.”

11:23 AM: “I think sometimes it’s the devil you know, whether it’s the detective or the gangster,” Donal Logue teases of Det. Bullock’s relationship with Fish Mooney.

11:25 AM: How the villains progress throughout the season will partially depend on how they pop while filming and what the audience responds to, Heller says. But season 1 will be about the rise of the Penguin.

11:28 AM: “I have to confess, I’m too old to be a fanboy,” Heller says.