Trivia / Gotham

• Approval of God: Of a sort:
  • Danny DeVito has spoken highly of Robin Lord Taylor's portrayal of the Penguin, the character he himself portrayed back in Batman Returns.
  • Mark Hamill has praised Cameron Monaghan's portrayal of Jerome as a possible Joker candidate.
• The Cast Showoff: Andrew Sellon is an actual ventriloquist so his scenes with the Mr. Scarface dummy had him operating and voicing it on set.
• Cast the Expert: An accidental case with Andrew Sellon; when originally cast for his role his resume did not list his skills as a ventriloquist, and it was fans pointing out his physical resemblance to Arnold Wesker that prompted him to ask the writers to make him the Ventriloquist.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Japanese dub, Reginald Payne is voiced by the mecha designer and illustrator Hidetaka Tenjin, who also voiced Hirosuke Amasaki in Super Robot Wars T.
• Channel Hop: In the UK, the show originally aired on Channel 5, but was then dropped and only available on Netflix (And the new season would not be available until months after it finished). Then it was picked up by E4.
• The Danza: Tom the Knife is played by Tommy Flanagan.
• Dawson Casting: From Season 3 on, 14-year-old Ivy Pepper is played by 28-year-old Maggie Geha. Slightly justified, as her body was aged to that of a 19-year-old.
• Directed by Cast Member:
  • Ben McKenzie, who plays Gordon, directed the season 3 episode "These Delicate and Dark Obsessions", the season 4 episode "One of My Three Soups", and the season 5 episode "13 Stitches".
  • Erin Richards, who plays Barbara Kean, directed season 5's "The Trial of Jim Gordon".
• Dyeing for Your Art: Robin Lord Taylor is a natural blond and he dyed his hair black to play Penguin. When filming of the final season wrapped, he completely shaved his head to regain his natural hair color faster.
• Executive Meddling: Cameron Monaghan revealed on Instagram that the executives forbade the show from ever calling Jerome or Jeremiah "Joker."
• Fake American:
  • Barbara Kean is played by Welsh actress Erin Richards.
  • English actor James Frain plays Theo Galavan.
  • Australian Benedict Samuel plays Jervis Tetch.
• Fan Nickname: Victor Zazz is known as The Baby Guy in some fan circles, due to his actor’s resemblance to a baby.
• Hey, It's That Place!: As with Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, and Joker (2019), Webb Institute's Stevenson Taylor Hall is used for Wayne Manor.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In Season 3, Clare Foley (Ivy Pepper) is replaced by the much older Maggie Geha. In this case, the recasting (along with the sudden boost in age) is explained In-Universe: after encountering a monster from Indian Hill, Ivy is reborn into a much older form. She's recasted again in Season 4, where she's played by Peyton List (this is explained to be the next evolution of Ivy after she swallows the mutagenic potions in "The Fear Reaper").
  • Camila Perez replaced Michelle Veintimilla as Bridget Pike, as the former played the role during the last third of Season 3. Due to the character getting burned alive and having scars because of it, the casting change isn't noticeable. However, Veintimilla would eventually return to the role in "Mandatory Brunch Meeting" and onward.
  • Halfway through Season 4, David W. Thompson replaced Charlie Tahan as Johnathan Crane / The Scarecrow.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • The Penguin's actor Robin Lord Taylor stated that he has watched the Adam West Batman ever since he was a child and feels honored to have carried on the role of Penguin after Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito.
  • David Mazouz on playing Bruce Wayne: "But what boy growing up didn’t want to be Batman? It’s coming true for me. I’m as close to Batman as I can get, at my age. It’s really cool."
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Oswald Cobblepot is reimagined as gay like his actor Robin Lord Taylor.
• Recycled Script:
  • So, a secret society who sees Gotham as an irredeemable Wretched Hive that needs to be destroyed for the good of the many plans to do so by spreading mind-altering toxin that was the trademark of a prior villain who was based on a figure from classic childrens' literature. Where have we seen that before?
  • Season 5 eventually ends up more or less adapting The Dark Knight Rises, featuring a Bane who needs a breathing mask to live acting as The Dragon to Ra's al Ghul's secret daughter who is out to destroy Gotham and get revenge on Bruce for killing her father. Both involve adaptations of the Batman: No Man's Land story arc.
• Remake Cameo: A bit of an unintentional occurs in two episodes which features an office manager working for Francis Dulmacher played by Jeffrey Combs, who voice acted in several DC projects in the past including The Scarecrow in Season 4 in Batman: The Animated Series.
• Role Reprise:
  • Paul Reubens plays the Penguin's father in Season 2, a role that he had previously played in Tim Burton's Batman Returns.
  • According to DC Universe Animated Original Movies producer James Tucker on the commentary for Batman: Hush, despite coming out after the last two seasons, Peyton List's role as Poison Ivy in that was recorded before she was cast to replace Maggie Geha here, making her time on the series actually this instead.
  • In the French dub, Bruce is voiced by Henri Bungert, except for the scenes set after the Time Skip in the Series Finale. For those scenes, he's instead voiced by Adrien Antoine, who voiced Batman in almost every animated and video game adaptations since The Batman. This also makes it the only time he voiced the character in a live-action adaptation.
• Romance on the Set: The onscreen chemistry between Morena Baccarin and Ben McKenzie apparently spilled over into real life. Baccarin's husband filed for divorce after discovering McKenzie in his home, freshly showered and playing with their son. Baccarin became pregnant by McKenzie and announced her plans to marry him, giving birth to their daughter on March 2, 2016. In a probable case of Real Life Writes the Plot, Baccarin's character also then became pregnant by McKenzie's character.
• Screwed by the Network: Fox put the show on a month-long hiatus, opting to show the last four episodes of Season 1 during April. Unfortunately, this meant the season's final stretch got subpar ratings. The last episode in March was watched by 6 million people. Beginning in April, only 4 million people were watching.
• Throw It In!: Cameron Monaghan did not tell Morena Baccarin that he was going to hold the gun at his crotch when Jerome asks if he and Lee ever had sex. Her reaction is totally genuine.
• Word of God: On the subject of the show's Anachronism Stew:
  Bruno Heller: "It's a mash-up, to use the modern phrase... a kind of timeless world. It's yesterday, it's today and it's tomorrow all at the same time, because that's the world that dreams live in."
• What Could Have Been:
  • In the early days of season one, the showrunners initially planned to never properly introduce the Joker, in a deliberate aversion of Wolverine Publicity. The plan was to instead have various characters show up that could potentially become the Joker one day- a morbid stand-up comedian at Fish Mooney's club, a kid who picks up the Red Hood's hood, a rocker named Jeri with a Monster Clown aesthetic. This idea was ultimately discarded when Cameron Monaghan played Jerome, originally slated as a one-off villain/Joker suspect. Jerome's wild popularity with the fanbase combined with Monaghan's performance turned Jerome into a Breakout Character, paving the way for many recurring appearances as both Jerome and his brother Jeremiah, the two of whom wind up sharing Joker qualities.
  • Jesse Plemons was considered for the part of Oswald Cobblepot before the casting of Robin Lord Taylor.
  • Michael Cerveris auditioned for the role of Alfred Pennyworth before Sean Pertwee was cast. Cerveris would eventually go on to portray Professor Pyg in the fourth season.
  • Back in the early 2000s, a planned series called Bruce Wayne was being considered with a very similar premise to Gotham. Shawn Ashmore was the first choice to play the 18-year-old Bruce Wayne. It was soon shelved and replaced with Superman characters instead, becoming the show Smallville.
    • Similarly, there was going to be a series called The Graysons, which would have been about a pre-Robin Dick Grayson's life in the circus. Not much else is known, but some theorize it would have incorporated similar concepts.
  • The ending of season four was supposed to tease◊ Lady Shiva, but the scene didn't make it to the final cut.
  • Jeremiah's final Joker look was originally going to be even closer to the traditional Joker design, with a pointed nose and shorter, cleaner hair (as opposed to the final design's long stringy patches).
  • The series producers originally asked Warner Bros. to borrow one of the Batman costumes from the films for the final episode, but they declined.
  • Showrunner John Stephens explained in an email that Harvey Dent never became Two-Face in the series because the production team was bound by the fact that Harvey traditionally doesn't become Two-Face until after Bruce has been active as Batman, though it was briefly considered for the series to feature a precursor to Two-Face as was done with Dr. Gerald Crane being a precursor to his son Jonathan's career as the Scarecrow.
  • The original pitch for the series was as a Live-Action Adaptation of Gotham Central, rather than a Prequel.
  • Had the series been allowed to continue to the originally planned 6th and 7th seasons, the Ventriloquist would have become a recurring villain.
• Written by Cast Member: Ben McKenzie wrote the Season 4 episode "The Demon's Head" and season 5's "The Trial of James Gordon".

---