Thanks to Richard for the heads up.
Brent: First things first, congratulations on joining the cast of Gotham.
Donal Logue: Thank you.
Brent: There was a rumor going around that you had been offered the role of Jim Gordon, but you quickly debunked that on Twitter. It seemed almost like the next day we started hearing that you may have been offered the role of Harvey Bullock, and Kyle and I both agreed on our podcast that we’d love to see that happen. Sure enough, we got the official confirmation, so we’re pretty excited to see what you can do with that role.
Donal Logue: I’m really happy. It’s great, and Ben McKenzie is fantastic. It’s funny because I don’t know how that went down. The truth is that I had met them a long time ago to talk to them about the project. All we had was a conversation, and it was funny when these rumors came out because they were unfounded in that Gordon was always supposed to younger and Bullock was older, so it was never a possibility for Gordon. Bullock was a possibility, but it was part of this vague conversation, and there never was an offer or something like that.
It also puts them in a tricky spot because on something this big, with Warner Bros. and DC and everything, there are a lot of different people that weigh in on who’s going to be in it. When I finally did get an offer, which was very recently, they were very apologetic because they felt in a weird way that it was dragging through a weird rumor mill that was slightly awkward, you know? I knew that they were interested, I just knew that there were other people in the mix too, and until certain things were taken care of they couldn’t make decisions.
So it was slightly humorous at the end when I got it and people were like “I told you so!” and it’s like “dude, you don’t even know how much of a possibility, how not a fait accompli this was.” I was one of a number of people, it very easily could have been someone else. It’s funny to be part of a project that is under such scrutiny because it appeals to a group of people who are very active and a fanbase that’s incredibly vocal, and really emotionally involved. It was kind of neat to go through it because I really hadn’t before.
Brent: The character of Harvey Bullock has gone through several iterations in the comics and the animated series. Can you tell us what we can expect from this version?
Donal Logue: It’s dangerous, because my kids watched the animated series and I remember listening to it over the speaker on road trips up to Oregon, I would hear it. It’s that tricky thing where I’m not that guy, I don’t look visually like the guy even in the cartoon. Then there’s that weird thing where I don’t want to take someone’s choice from the cartoon and match it. I want to create a character, no different from Lee Toric in Sons of Anarchy or King Horik [from History's Vikings] or Hank Dolworth in Terriers. They’re all uniquely different scenarios and I don’t want to feel forced to do an impersonation of something else, which is a difficult thing to keep up over the course of a longer series. So we’ll have those talks.
What I do love about Gotham, that I can say so far, is that it creates this incredible world that, for me, you can step into things that almost feel like the roaring 20s, and then there’s this other really kind of heavy Blade Runner vibe floating around. It has this anachronistic element to it where it feels like it’s either New York in the 70s, or it kind of exists independently of time and space in a way, and you can dip into all of these different genres. So I’m excited by it.
There are elements of it that are completely contemporary and there are pieces of it that are very old-fashioned. I’m excited to see which way they go with the production design and wardrobe and all that kind of stuff. My main concern to start with, I was just going over this relationship between him and Gordon, just to find out how that dynamic plays out. Just to do my homework, basically.
It’s interesting that there’s something that exists that you can watch, but Ben obviously is not going to be tied to the cartoon and who Gordon is in that. I’m going to have to take a little bit of license and bring Bullock more towards me, and not me more towards the dude in the cartoon
Donal Logue: Thank you.
Brent: There was a rumor going around that you had been offered the role of Jim Gordon, but you quickly debunked that on Twitter. It seemed almost like the next day we started hearing that you may have been offered the role of Harvey Bullock, and Kyle and I both agreed on our podcast that we’d love to see that happen. Sure enough, we got the official confirmation, so we’re pretty excited to see what you can do with that role.
Donal Logue: I’m really happy. It’s great, and Ben McKenzie is fantastic. It’s funny because I don’t know how that went down. The truth is that I had met them a long time ago to talk to them about the project. All we had was a conversation, and it was funny when these rumors came out because they were unfounded in that Gordon was always supposed to younger and Bullock was older, so it was never a possibility for Gordon. Bullock was a possibility, but it was part of this vague conversation, and there never was an offer or something like that.
It also puts them in a tricky spot because on something this big, with Warner Bros. and DC and everything, there are a lot of different people that weigh in on who’s going to be in it. When I finally did get an offer, which was very recently, they were very apologetic because they felt in a weird way that it was dragging through a weird rumor mill that was slightly awkward, you know? I knew that they were interested, I just knew that there were other people in the mix too, and until certain things were taken care of they couldn’t make decisions.
So it was slightly humorous at the end when I got it and people were like “I told you so!” and it’s like “dude, you don’t even know how much of a possibility, how not a fait accompli this was.” I was one of a number of people, it very easily could have been someone else. It’s funny to be part of a project that is under such scrutiny because it appeals to a group of people who are very active and a fanbase that’s incredibly vocal, and really emotionally involved. It was kind of neat to go through it because I really hadn’t before.
Brent: The character of Harvey Bullock has gone through several iterations in the comics and the animated series. Can you tell us what we can expect from this version?
Donal Logue: It’s dangerous, because my kids watched the animated series and I remember listening to it over the speaker on road trips up to Oregon, I would hear it. It’s that tricky thing where I’m not that guy, I don’t look visually like the guy even in the cartoon. Then there’s that weird thing where I don’t want to take someone’s choice from the cartoon and match it. I want to create a character, no different from Lee Toric in Sons of Anarchy or King Horik [from History's Vikings] or Hank Dolworth in Terriers. They’re all uniquely different scenarios and I don’t want to feel forced to do an impersonation of something else, which is a difficult thing to keep up over the course of a longer series. So we’ll have those talks.
What I do love about Gotham, that I can say so far, is that it creates this incredible world that, for me, you can step into things that almost feel like the roaring 20s, and then there’s this other really kind of heavy Blade Runner vibe floating around. It has this anachronistic element to it where it feels like it’s either New York in the 70s, or it kind of exists independently of time and space in a way, and you can dip into all of these different genres. So I’m excited by it.
There are elements of it that are completely contemporary and there are pieces of it that are very old-fashioned. I’m excited to see which way they go with the production design and wardrobe and all that kind of stuff. My main concern to start with, I was just going over this relationship between him and Gordon, just to find out how that dynamic plays out. Just to do my homework, basically.
It’s interesting that there’s something that exists that you can watch, but Ben obviously is not going to be tied to the cartoon and who Gordon is in that. I’m going to have to take a little bit of license and bring Bullock more towards me, and not me more towards the dude in the cartoon
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