Gotham‘s Michael Chiklis wouldn’t give away much about what’s in store for Captain Barnes in season three of the popular Fox series, but he did tease that huge changes he’s excited about playing are coming in the third season. Chiklis kicked off our interview at the San Diego Comic Con while at the same time trying to arrange a time and place to meet up with his daughter who also made the trek to San Diego for the sold-out convention. After passing off his phone so the arrangements could be confirmed, Chiklis told us his daughter is a comic book fan who just graduated from college and that he was the commencement speaker. How cool is that?!
Getting down to business, Michael Chiklis provided a little insight into the upcoming third season of the gritty drama which will premiere on September 19, 2016.
Michael Chiklis Interview:
How much of Vic Mackey from The Shield is part of Captain Barnes?
Michael Chiklis: “He was sort of the antithesis of that. What’s going to happen this year with my guy is very much the reason I took the role, in all honesty. But the wonderful thing about television series is you get to spend quite a bit of time setting the pick, or a series of picks, that you don’t have to play out instantaneously, right? So, I knew what’s coming was going to come in the next season, so it allowed me to really establish that I’m playing a law-and-order zealot, the antithesis of Vic Mackey, absolutely strident, unyielding with regard to the law. And the inherent tension between Ben (McKenzie’s) character and mine would be that Ben is being pulled into the Vic Mackey of it all, descending into darkness, and I’m trying to pull him out of it with less and less effectiveness. And then I get terribly injured and now I’m a depleted, injured, weakened guy watching this happen, still trying to keep up the good fight, and then something crazy happens. That I can’t tell you about.”
How many episodes will it be before we see this craziness?
Michael Chiklis: “The beginning of the craziness is the fourth episode. The very beginning of my craziness… I cannot tell you what happens, but I can tell you this it will change my character inexorably. It will completely change his relationship with Gordon and everybody. It’s the reason I was like, as an actor, ‘Okay, I’ll do that. That’s interesting to me.’ So, I’m excited. Now the payoff is starting to present itself for the groundwork we’ve laid. Because a lot of people have been sort of like, ‘What’s happening here? I know something’s going to happen.’ You know what I mean? Yeah, something’s going to happen!”
You’ve worked in the genre before. What sets this apart for you?
Michael Chiklis: “I think it was the concept, honestly. Just when I heard the concept of this show, I was like, ‘That’s smart. That’s cool.’ Take a sort of secondary character from an existing pantheon of characters and focus on him 20 years before, so that we can look at (it) all. I just thought it was brilliant, really, from a conceptual standpoint. It also gave us an opportunity to look at characters in their conception and also gives you the latitude to create a number of new characters.”
