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Gotham Writer Bruno Heller Discusses the First Season

Executive Producer and Writer Bruno Heller talks about the upcoming season in a phone conference

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Gotham is just a few weeks away from airing on Fox and there's tons of anticipation for the show. Executive Producer and Writer of the series, Bruno Heller, talked to the press during a phone conference about what we can expect from the first season and how it all came together.

The first question to Heller asked about the amount of characters in this series and what his thought process on that was. Heller stated that "We had a lot to indicate where we're going. It won't be a villain of the week in the future... We're just trying to make the best show we can." Other iconic characters will be introduced but the focus is much more on development of these characters.

Heller was asked about the city of Gotham and if it shapes the overall story. "Very much so. It's about city life. It's a dream world everyone shares. Everyone has a vision of Gotham in their minds. You have to create a 3 dimensional world that's believable but has those fantastic elements. It's both real but slightly surreal." While the show features many familiar faces, Heller stated that Gotham is a central character in this series and the title of the show isn't by accident.

In the next question, Heller was asked about what inspiration he drew from for Gotham. Heller replied that the attraction was to tell origin stories and to tell their full stories. He went on to say this is a world that everyone knows and people want to know how characters like Batman and Riddler got to become the people they are now. He said it's like seeing pictures of your parents before you were born. "There's something intrinsically fascinating about it."

As for how shows like Smallville and Arrow have impacted Gotham, and whether or not this show would be possible pre-their existence, Heller said "10 years ago it wouldn't be possible. That a combination of what the Nolans did to revitalize the Batman franchise" and also what Smallville and Arrow did really helped make this show possible. Heller said that the difference between the shows is that Arrow and Smallville, because they are on the CW and Gotham is on Fox, "are arena shows and this is a stadium show and it has to appeal to a larger audience."

Someone then asked about the Netflix deal with Gotham and how it will affect this series. Heller said "I'm the last person to ask about business... All these new outlets can only help."

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Heller was asked about how they decided what elements to take from the comics and what to make up. He said that if they're showing the viewer the same character they know from the comics, then they're failing the audience. As for the Penguin, "this is Penguin as a young man he's striving and struggling and hungry. Right now, he's hungry, violent character. We worked very closely with Geoff Johns at DC to make sure we're not betraying the essence of the character."

The process for creating the path for these characters was brought up next and Heller responded by saying that the main challenge is reverse engineering the character without destroying the mythology but you want the character and their journey to be interesting. He went on to say that this is the fun part of the show as we see how the characters change over time. The characters start to tell their own story, so you have to leave room for both the character and story to grow.

When it comes to his favorite scene in the pilot, Heller said "I rarely watch the first few episodes of a series with glee. I tend to see things I wish we done differently." He said he loved the opening scene and it "played out pretty much as I had seen in my imagination, so that was a thrill."

One person wondered what characters won't make it into the series because they'd be too difficult. Heller responded quickly by saying Killer Croc might be tough but it's somewhere they may go in the future. "Generally, what we look at is characters who have drama in their history. Those who live in the real world of Gotham. It's not about super-powers, it's about super-will."

Finally, Heller was asked about Sean Pertwee as Alfred. Heller says Sean brings strength but a sense of irony to the character. Alfred isn't a bad father but he's the permissive father. "In order for Bruce to turn into Batman, Alfred had to be an enabler." These two characters had an unspoken word between each other. He's a good caretaker with a sense of rage within him and that's what Sean does brilliantly.

Make sure to check out Gotham when it airs on Monday, September 22nd on Fox.