50 Fun Facts About Gotham

Who developed Gotham for television?

Bruno Heller was reluctant at first, saying he didn't know how to write about people with superpowers, so he built the show around a young detective who has none.

On which US network did Gotham air?

Fox committed to a full series up front in 2013 rather than ordering only a pilot.

Which episode was Gotham's 100th and last?

The Beginning... ends the prequel on the night its hero's story usually starts: Bruce Wayne comes home after ten years away and is finally seen in costume in the closing shot.

Who plays Detective James Gordon in Gotham?

Ben McKenzie had already been on the other side of the story: he voiced Bruce Wayne in the 2011 animated film Batman: Year One, opposite Bryan Cranston's Gordon.

Which actor was rumoured to play Gordon in Gotham but ended up as Harvey Bullock?

Donal Logue was reported in January 2014 to have been offered Gordon and denied it on Twitter within hours. A month later he signed on as Gordon's rule-bending partner instead.

Who plays the young Bruce Wayne in Gotham?

David Mazouz changed the writers' plans: the showrunner admitted he was unsure how much to use Bruce until the Touch actor was cast, then called him the best actor ever to play the part.

Which future Batman character secretly witnesses the Wayne murders in Gotham's pilot?

Catwoman, here a teenage street thief called Selina Kyle, watches from above as 12-year-old Bruce loses his parents. The show opens on her crossing the rooftops, not on its detective hero.

Who plays Alfred, the Wayne family butler, in Gotham?

Sean Pertwee plays him as a tough ex-marine from East London, a more action-ready Alfred than the films' butlers, in line with the Batman: Earth One graphic novel.

Who plays Oswald Cobblepot, the future Penguin, in Gotham?

Robin Lord Taylor's Cobblepot starts the series as a lowly underling of gangster Fish Mooney and ends its first season shouting that he is the king of Gotham.

Who plays the young Selina Kyle in Gotham?

Camren Bicondova gave the part up for the finale's time jump by her own choice, calling it the most respectful thing for the character, so Lili Simmons played the adult Selina.

Which actor plays Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, in Gotham?

Cory Michael Smith was hired only as a guest for the pilot, playing a socially awkward police forensic scientist. A month later the show made him a regular.

Which star plays the crime boss Fish Mooney in Gotham?

Jada Pinkett Smith's Fish Mooney is not from the comics: she was invented for the show to help tell the Penguin's story, and the actress signed for just one year.

How is Fish Mooney seemingly killed in Gotham's season one finale?

Dropped off a tall building by the Penguin, she lands in the water below, which left the show a way to bring her back a season later.

Who plays Dr Leslie 'Lee' Thompkins in Gotham?

Morena Baccarin's doctor becomes Gordon's partner on screen, and life followed the script: in 2017 she married the actor who plays him.

Who is Jim Gordon's fiancée in the first season of Gotham?

Barbara Kean starts the season engaged to him and ends it attacking his new girlfriend. The showrunner said the writers always knew she was the wrong woman for Gordon.

Which Gotham mob boss, played by John Doman, has ties to Jim Gordon's father?

Carmine Falcone spares Gordon in the pilot out of respect for the detective's late father, then orders him to prove his loyalty by executing Cobblepot.

In Gotham's second season, James Frain's villain tries to kill Bruce Wayne for which secret society?

The Order of St. Dumas wants the last Wayne dead to settle a centuries-old grudge over a disgraced ancestor. Frain's character is killed, then brought back from the dead as its avenger, Azrael.

In Gotham, what is the secret facility beneath Arkham where Hugo Strange makes monsters?

Indian Hill is secretly a Wayne Enterprises operation: experiments the company claimed to have shut down were simply moved underground and handed to Strange.

In Gotham, which shadowy group controls Hugo Strange's experiments?

The Court of Owls is the secret council that really runs the city. Strange spends the season-two finale grilling his prisoners to find out whether they have learned it exists.

What job does Jim Gordon take in Gotham's third season after leaving the GCPD?

Bounty hunter Gordon spends the start of the season chasing Strange's escaped monsters for cash instead of a badge, drinking hard and nursing a broken heart.

Which villain threatens Gotham with a deadly virus in the show's third season?

Jervis Tetch, the hypnotist better known as the Mad Hatter, arrives hunting his runaway sister Alice, and it is her infected blood that becomes his weapon against the city.

Which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor plays Ra's al Ghul in Gotham?

Alexander Siddig, Deep Space Nine's Dr. Bashir, plays the head of the League of Shadows, revived centuries ago in a healing pool and told to find an heir, which is why he fixes on Bruce Wayne.

Which daughter returns to Gotham in season four to take the underworld from Cobblepot?

Sofia Falcone, played by Teen Wolf's Crystal Reed, arrives saying she wants to help Gordon bring the Penguin down. Her real aim is to rebuild her own family's empire.

What system does Cobblepot impose on Gotham's criminals in season four?

Licensed crime means crooks must get a Licence of Misconduct from the Penguin before any job, under a deal that leaves the police free to chase only the unlicensed.

Which subtitle did Gotham give its fourth season, in which Bruce Wayne first fights crime in a mask?

A Dark Knight replaced an earlier tagline, Dawn of Night, less than three weeks before the premiere, and it then ran as the subtitle of every episode that season.

Who seeks vengeance for her father's death in Gotham's final season?

Nyssa al Ghul hides in plain sight for most of the season as Theresa Walker, the superior giving the army's commander his orders, before unmasking as the daughter of Ra's al Ghul.

Which facial hair does Jim Gordon finally sport in Gotham's finale?

A moustache, though not all his own: the actor meant to grow the character's famous whiskers for the final season, but with only two days to do it he ended up wearing a fake.

Which actor played the Penguin's father in both the 1992 film Batman Returns and Gotham?

Paul Reubens, best known as Pee-wee Herman, abandoned his baby as Tucker Cobblepot in Tim Burton's film, then got a second go in Gotham as Elijah Van Dahl, who takes the grown Oswald into his home.

In Gotham's final scene, what does Jim Gordon use to contact the city's new vigilante?

A searchlight on the roof of police headquarters, first lit a season earlier, is switched back on by a commissioner who had spent the episode planning to retire.

Which Jurassic Park actor plays Professor Hugo Strange in Gotham?

BD Wong, the park's geneticist Henry Wu, plays another scientist without scruples: Strange is hired to run Arkham Asylum while secretly experimenting with bringing the dead back to life.

Which Batman comic storyline is Gotham's final season based on?

No Man's Land cuts the city off from the outside world while the government holds back from reuniting it with the mainland. The season was first ordered at 10 episodes, then raised to 12.

Where was Gotham primarily filmed?

New York City was nicknamed Gotham long before Batman existed, so when filming began there in March 2014 the trade press asked: where else?

Which star of HBO's Barry plays Gotham's hitman Victor Zsasz?

Anthony Carrigan was told he would fail as an actor once alopecia took his hair and eyebrows. When he stopped hiding it under make-up the work came, Gotham's hairless hitman included.

Whose suggestion led Gotham's showrunner to centre the series on Commissioner Gordon?

His son, then 12, proposed Gordon as a decent man without powers to build a show around, which set his father wondering whether Gordon had been the cop on the Wayne murder case.

Which villain's name did Gotham's 'higher-ups' never let the Valeska twins use?

Joker was off-limits, along with pure green hair: the twins' actor said the order came from high up, to reserve both for the films, so the show could only offer forerunners of the villain.

Which actor plays both Valeska twins in Gotham?

Cameron Monaghan, known from Shameless, was booked for one episode as Jerome. The crew liked him so much that the character kept coming back, and later gained a twin brother.

Whom does Jerome Valeska murder in his debut episode of Gotham?

His mother, a circus performer, is found dead and he plays the grieving son until Gordon accuses him, at which point the tears turn into a maniacal laugh.

Which Gotham episode, set at a travelling circus, introduces Jerome Valeska?

The Blind Fortune Teller is named after the circus psychic who tries to steer Gordon off the trail. The same hour introduces two feuding circus performers who will become the Boy Wonder's parents.

Whose vocal performance did the actor behind Gotham's Jerome Valeska draw on for the role?

Mark Hamill, who had voiced the villain in animation for 20 years, was the only earlier performance the actor felt comfortable borrowing from. He left the film versions alone and read the comics instead.

Who betrays and kills Jerome Valeska in Gotham's second season?

Theo Galavan plunges a knife into his own protégé in front of a charity gala so that the city's elite will see him as the hero who saved them, a step toward becoming mayor.

Under what alias is Jeremiah Valeska first introduced in Gotham's fourth season?

Xander Wilde is the name he took after being sent away as a boy, hoping his violent twin could never trace him. By the time Jerome does, he is a successful engineer.

In Gotham, whose gas turns Jeremiah Valeska's skin chalk white and his lips red?

Scarecrow's gas, in a special batch mixed for Jerome, reaches the sane twin only after Jerome's death: it sprays from a jack-in-the-box left behind as a parting gift.

Which devoted henchwoman serves Jeremiah Valeska as Gotham's stand-in for Harley Quinn?

Ecco follows him with total devotion and leads the cult that worships him. In the finale he shoots her anyway and shrugs that there are other fish in the sea.

Which The Shield star plays Captain Nathaniel Barnes in Gotham?

Michael Chiklis's Barnes arrives as the by-the-book captain meant to clean up the police. Then a drop of infected blood lands in his eye, and he starts executing criminals himself.

Which Gotham enforcer becomes Solomon Grundy?

Butch Gilzean, whose birth name turns out to be Cyrus Gold, is dumped in a swamp fouled by chemical waste and rises pale, hugely strong and with no memory of who he was.

Which villain did Gotham recast twice?

Ivy Pepper, the future Poison Ivy, starts as a child played by Clare Foley, is aged into a 19-year-old by a monster's touch and becomes Maggie Geha, then drinks an apothecary's chemicals and emerges as Peyton List.

What is the title of the Alfred prequel series spun off from Gotham?

Pennyworth follows Alfred as a young ex-SAS soldier starting a security company in an alternate-history 1960s London, years before he becomes the Wayne family butler.

Which streaming service took over Gotham's Alfred prequel for its third season?

HBO Max took the show over from Epix, the small cable channel that launched it in 2019, but kept it for only that one season before cancelling it in February 2023.

Which streamer bought Gotham's worldwide video-on-demand rights in 2014?

Netflix signed the deal almost three weeks before the show had aired a single episode, a worldwide sale the studio itself called unprecedented.

What does the Penguin call the nightclub he opens in Gotham's fourth season?

The Iceberg Lounge opens with a chilling centrepiece: the Riddler, once his closest friend, frozen solid in a block of ice as a reminder never to let love be his downfall again.