Highly acclaimed actor Jeffrey Wright has spoken about the backlash he received when he was cast in the role of Commissioner Jim Gordon in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman” film at Warner Bros. Pictures.
Wright’s involvement with the role came up again this week as the actor posted a photo on social media indicating he’d just received the script for “The Batman Part II” to read. When he was hired for the first film several years ago, most seemed to celebrate the fact that such a venerated and beloved actor had landed the part.
However there was also a small but vocal contingent critical of his casting in a role generally played by Caucasian actors on screen in the past like Pat Hingle, Bob Hastings, J.K. Simmons, Gary Oldman and Ben McKenzie.
During a recent interview with Collider, the Oscar nominee discussed that negative reaction, and his frustrations over it:
“I really find it fascinating the ways in which there’s such a conversation, and I think even more of a conversation now, about Black characters in these roles. It’s just so f—— racist and stupid. It’s just so blind in a way that I find revealing to not recognize that the evolution of these films reflects the evolution of society, that somehow it’s defiling this franchise not to keep it grounded in the cultural reality of 1939 when the comic books were first published. It’s just the dumbest thing. It’s absent all logic.”
Wright adds that one of the big reasons Batman has endured over the decades is because he was created in such a way that it allows for various different interpretations of the character and his world:
“I feel that I own these stories as much as anyone. Perhaps now, because I’m a part of them, I have the most skin in the game. [Batman creators] Bob Kane and Bill Finger are two Jewish guys up in the Bronx, imagining heroes and villains in a city that looked like the city around them at the time, but I think what they imagined was open-ended. I think that the success and the longevity of these stories and characters are owing to the openness of their imaginations and what they created.”
Wright is ready to reprise the role for “The Batman Part II” which begins production early next year in the UK ahead of an October 2027 release.
