Matt Reeves’The Batmanlived up to starJeffrey Wright’s expectations when he watched the complete movie for the first time.
I think it really pays deep respect to the comics, to DC particularly."
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How did you come to join the film?
Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant Jim Gordon in ‘The Batman’.DC Comics/Warner Bros. Pictures
JEFFREY WRIGHT:The usual way.
Then I went away and read the script, and I was in.
The script, it read like a really great noir-ish crime story that also happened to be aBatmanfilm.
Jeffrey Wright as Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Robert Pattinson as Batman in ‘The Batman’.Jonathan Olley/DC Comics/Warner Bros.
And I just thought it was super dope, as the old people say.
What attracted you to playing Gordon specifically?
Well, I liked that we were in year two of Batman’s work.
Because we’re early in his journey, Gordon is still a lieutenant.
So, that was exciting to me.
Which real-world themes did you think the movie was in conversation with?
There’s an awareness of an instability within Gotham that I think is reflective of the times.
There’s an awareness of certain class tension and pervasive distrust in Gotham.
Gotham is a city, but Gotham, in some ways, is also America.
I think that’s really very powerful.
What was that like?
But yeah, most of our interaction is through the cowl and the cape.
Because he’s the human form.
There’s something that is extra human.
So, Gordon becomes a touchstone for the audience in some ways that I think is interesting.
And I think we made these characters together.
And, of course, overseen by Matt Reeves and his vision.
But we very much did this together.
So, Gordon and Batman are a team, a dynamic duo in this thing, if you will.
He had the much badder car than I did.
What was your memorable day on set?
I mean, the most memorable day wasthe first day of our primary filming.
So, just that scene, walking through the hall, through those cops, it was so memorable.
Because one, “Okay, we’re making aBatmanmovie.”
And it asks a lot of questions: Who is this guy in this strange suit?
Why is he wearing this strange get-up?
And why is Gordon with him?
It raises all of these questions for which sometimes the answers may be assumed in other versions.
In your opinion, why does Gordon trust Batman in this version?
The answer is I think that they trust one another because so much else around them is untrustworthy.
And I think that Gordon realizes that Batman is effective and that he’s also, Gordon, overwhelmed.
And I think likewise for Batman, he’s alone.
And so there’s a fragile, slowly earned trust at the beginning that they’re stepping into gingerly.
And so that’s how we began.
The answer to why they trust one another is because they can’t trust anyone else.
The Batmanopens in theaters March 4.
