The Many Falls & Eventual Rise Of Oswald Cobblepot

Gotham was always going to need a secret weapon.

Certainly, at the outset of the hit series' first season, based on DC Comics' Batman mythology, the deck seemed stacked both in its favour and against it. The show arrived at a time when comic books, and their rich, deep well of stories and characters, have never been more widely accepted, but — as a result — it found itself stepping out into a TV landscape freshly populated with other series with similar sources, from the CW's dual successes with Arrow and The Flash to NBC's underrated Constantine and ABC's Agents Of SHIELD, for rival comics company Marvel, not to mention the fact that its appearance came in the still-relatively-fresh wake of the most popular series of Batman films to have ever hit the big screen.

So, for Gotham to succeed, it had to stand out from the pack, and, with the series now swiftly approaching the climax of its inaugural run of episodes under the guidance of showrunner and developer Bruno Heller, it has managed to do just that.

In part, this is by design; the notion of a Batman-based story without Batman himself piqued interest before we'd ever seen a scene, while the wide presence of veteran actors such as Jada Pinkett-Smith, Ben McKenzie, Donal Logue, Sean Pertwee and John Doman afforded Gotham a gravitas that has, at least until recently, generally escaped TV shows with roots in the world of comic books. But, despite that, this is not solely why Gotham has been so successful in its first series — rather, that credit is more than equally deserved by the show's up-and-comers. And, while there's no limit to the praise that should be heaped on young stars Camren Bicondova (Selina Kyle), David Mazouz (Bruce Wayne) and Clare Foley (Poison Ivy), it's fair to say that a solid chunk of the show's popularity is thanks to the performance of Robin Lord Taylor, the man behind the limping walk of aspirant criminal Oswald "The Penguin" Cobblepot.

Being labelled a show's "breakout" character has got to be a difficult pill to swallow, especially when you're (a) inhabiting a role previously played by high-profile actors such as Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito, and (b) as seemingly humble and down-to-earth as the affable Taylor, who comes across as nothing short of a total charmer — i.e. the antithesis of snivelling, scheming Oswald — when The Music makes contact ahead of his journey Down Under for the Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Melbourne and the Gold Coast this week and next.

"I never expected to be part of something this big and, to follow in the footsteps of Danny DeVito and Burgess Meredith, it’s a lot to take on," Taylor explains of the surreal turn his days have taken this past year. "I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t say that that didn’t give me a significant amount of anxiety, you know what I mean? And especially with the fans of this genre being so intelligent and so meticulous in how they absorb every moment of the show – you know, I definitely felt that pressure, but then to have such positive responses… nothing prepares you for that.

"The most I wanted out of my career was, you know, I would have loved to have been on the dumbest half-hour thing you could imagine, and that would be enough for me. One season and then cancel it, and I would still feel like I was on top of the world. Now, to be a part of this and to have the second season greenlit, and also to have gotten such amazing responses from people – people who these comics, people who really just live Batman – to have them be so positive is just overwhelming in its amazingness, I would say."

I feel like we’ve been given the best case – all of us, in the cast – in that so many of these characters we have seen before, but we haven’t seen these aspects of their personalities.

Although Taylor faced a significant amount of pressure in inhabiting Cobblepot, the role has also allowed him a great deal of freedom to make his own defining mark on the man who will one day become The Penguin - primarily, precisely because he is not yet The Penguin as we know him. The DeVito and Meredith versions, after all, were Cobblepot in his prime, a top-of-the-city criminal with minions and gadgets and a sense of real power, while Taylor's - due to the nature of Gotham's "pre-Batman" setting - is a totally unique prospect, not above getting his hands seriously dirty to climb a single rung of Gotham's convoluted underworld ladder.

"I feel like we’ve been given the best case – all of us, in the cast – in that so many of these characters we have seen before, but we haven’t seen these aspects of their personalities," Taylor says. "People have also asked me if I feel concerned about playing a character that’s been portrayed by such amazing actors, and has been pored over and really brought into the pop culture of the world – but I feel that because he’s coming up in the world, because we’re showing parts of him that we haven’t seen before, I feel like I have ownership over that.

"And our showrunner and creator, Bruno Heller, has been just amazing in terms of allowing us to really explore these characters, and really find our own way through scripts and through the arc of the season. It’s an amazing gift, to be given that, and I’m just so grateful."

However, that's not to say we'll never see Cobblepot ascend to the heights that we all know he'll eventually reach - but Taylor, like most of the show's viewers, is far more fascinated by the journey than his destination - the how of Oswald's tightening grip on Gotham City - especially with the growing tapestry of other developing Bat-antagonists surrounding his ascension to the top, not to mention the ripple effects of his apparent victory over violent rival Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett-Smith), his antagonism with crime lord Sal Maroni (David Zayas), and his tenuous relationship with mafia Don Carmine Falcone (John Doman).

"I think [Cobblepot's eventual success is] definitely something that we’re gonna have to see," Taylor considers. "You know, Fish is his main adversary in the show, just immediately, but, in terms of Gotham City as a whole, if Fish goes, there’s someone else to replace her. It’s not an easy trip to the top for anyone in Gotham City, so that’s what I’m most excited about, is to see, like, yes, he will get more power as he goes, but with that power opens up a whole new trove of problems.

"It opens up a whole new ream of things that he’s going to have to negotiate – not just with Falcone and Maroni … we’re establishing these other iconic villains: Edward Nygma [Cory Michael Smith], who becomes The Riddler, and then on top of that we’ve also introduced Harvey Dent [Nicholas D'Agosto], and several others – I’m just so excited to see how Oswald has to then find his way with these other, you know, iconic supervillains. How are these immense egos going to interact with each other? That’s what I’m so excited about exploring in the second season."

Another point of excitement for fans and Taylor alike is the prospect of more interaction between Cobblepot and Cory Michael Smith's Edward Nygma, who so far have only shared a single scene together - and immediately created a web-storm of giddy delirium among Gotham's avid viewers in its wake.

"I want it to happen every day!" Taylor enthuses of sharing screen time with the future Riddler. "I’m such a fan of Cory Michael Smith; he has actually become a really good friend of mine, and I think his commitment to the character and what he’s bringing to the table is incredible, and just so fun to watch him play.

"What’s funny about that scene between the two of us is that they’re both such oddballs, but in such different ways, so it’s interesting when you get two personalities like that together, the sparks really do fly in that way, so as an actor that’s all you want, just someone fun to play with, and that’s Cory for me. He’s just amazing."

Part of Michaels' charm as Nygma has been the understated tragedy he has brought to the role - his repeated rebuffs from romantic interest Miss Kringle, his often abrupt, cold dismissals at the hands of his co-workers, the general intolerance for his penchant for riddles... it's been a slow descent into maligned madness for Edward Nygma, and Taylor promises the breaking point is on its way.

"Oh, he’ll snap," Taylor teases of Nygma's eventual turn. "Just wait. It’s really good. It’s really good."

Gotham City is the main character, in a way, and how that character affects all of us, and how it forms all of our personalities and our relationships with each other.

The biggest surprise about Gotham's success, however, arguably comes from the fact that the show has managed to outgrow its original conceit of being just "a Batman story without Batman". Still, although it's not a widely acknowledged fact, long-time fans of the Bat-canon know that Gotham City itself is as much a living, breathing character as any of its inhabitants, with its intimidating skyline and streets and buildings and cesspools all arguably shaping the citizens more than the other way around - and it's that distinct quality that Taylor believes sets Gotham apart and (aside from rights issues) keeps the show's world necessarily separate from the growing shared universe budding out of Arrow.

"What I love about the show – and I love The Flash and I love Arrow, I think those are such brilliant, brilliant shows – but it’s interesting with Gotham because it’s the only one where … we’re going back, several years before Batman is Batman; it’s illuminating Gotham City, as Gotham City is the main character, in a way, and how that character affects all of us, and how it forms all of our personalities and our relationships with each other.

"I think it’s just really fascinating, and I love that. It’s a really interesting twist on the traditional superhero story and narrative, which is what I love most about the show."

A hot second place absolutely goes to his younger co-stars, however, as Taylor can't help but bubble about the future prospects for characters such as Selina, Bruce and Ivy, even if he has some other Gotham citizens on his wish list to appear in the series.

"I would love to see Harley Quinn come in," Taylor says. "That’s really what I would love. I think that’s such a brilliant, brilliant character. You know, who knows how old she would be – she might be, like, five – but I just think that would be so fascinating, to see her psychology develop.

"But … I think that the cast that we’ve assembled, especially our younger actors – Clare Foley, who plays Poison Ivy, for example – I think I even tweeted this, I said, she is honestly one of the characters that creeps me out the most of anyone in the entire show. To watch these kids grow up in these roles, I am just so excited to see, because they’re so brilliant, and it adds this other element, because they are children, and to watch the actual children go through it and develop within themselves these capabilities and then bring them to their characters is just so exciting. I can’t wait to see that."

So attached is Taylor to the existing cast that his only sticking point with a projected time-jump for season two - an oft-touted option among online discussion circles for the show moving forward - would be that he wouldn't want to replace a single member to be able to make the leap.

"I think anything is possible – the only thing I would say against that is that I would be worried that, if we made a jump, we would lose these amazing actors that we’ve established," Taylor laments. "I think what they bring - Camren, David and Clare, in particular - I think what they’ve brought is just so incredible. Again, they could definitely do a time jump, but it would be a real shame to lose that relationship that we’ve established with these actual actors, because what they’ve brought is just so compelling."

However, if the jump could happen in such a way as to keep the young cast members in their place - and, with the speed of natural ageing vs TV production specials, it's not out of the realm of possibility - then Taylor is well on board with the idea.

"That would be brilliant," Taylor concedes. "That would be amazing. I would be totally down with that.

"That’s the other funny thing, is that, like, where we shoot, we have, you know, that walls in our specific area at the studio, the walls, they have all of the images of the main characters from the photo shoot we took a year ago for the first season’s artwork, and already you can see – like, [Mazouz is] a baby in the photo, and then just seeing him in real life, these kids are at that age where they’re becoming people! It’s really incredible."

Oswald is going to make a huge ove. Like, Oswald is going to set off a chain of events that will forever change the way business is run in Gotham City.

Before we see any such major creative shake-ups, though, there's the final group of first-season episodes to be navigated, and Taylor promises big rewards in store for those who have been avidly following the city's adventures over the past year - especially those waiting for Cobblepot to make another impact in Gotham's underworld.

"Well, Oswald is going to make a huge move," he reveals. "Like, Oswald is going to set off a chain of events that will forever change the way business is run in Gotham City. We don’t know yet if that’s maybe the smartest choice that he could have made, but at the same time his ambition is so grand, he had to make that move now, or he would’ve been ... taken out.

"It’s a combination of ambition and survival, and so, yeah, you’ll see him really assert himself in a way that he hasn’t yet."

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Cobblepot's journey so far - and, from the sounds of it, going forward - is that he has become defined as much by his missteps and failures as he is his successes, while his acute understanding of the city's inevitable downward trajectory - his realisation of Gotham's impending underworld war; the necessity of "walking with a friend in the dark" rather than "alone in the light", as he once said to by-the-book detective Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie); the fact that he sees and hears what others do not - places him in a unique position that poses seriously tantalising prospects for the show's second season.

"I think that’s what’s most compelling about the character," Taylor reflects of Cobblepot's unlikely resilience. "What I really set out to do with the character is establish more of the humanity within the character, and not so much the grand supervillain that we’ve all known has been portrayed in the past; to really find that vulnerability within him, and those failures and those mistakes all go hand-in-hand with that.

"At the same time, with every success, it opens up another box of problems. And he’s gonna have to navigate those next as well. So as much as I would love for him to be top of the world when we come back for the second season, I also don’t want him to – I want him to still be failing and finding his way. We have a long way to go before he’s running for mayor of Gotham City, you know what I mean? And that’s so much more interesting for me to play, so I’m just hoping there’s more of that."

"He has it in him. He definitely has it in him," he continues. "Again, his ambition is unmatched, I think, to anybody in Gotham City, in a certain way, because he came from such a powerless place, and he has just such an extreme desire to never go back to that place again, so he is willing to do whatever it takes.

"He understands that about Gotham City more than anyone does, in a certain way. I think ... this is the lesson he’s trying to impart on Gordon, and why he wants to be close to him, is because Gordon is also going to have to make those decisions, is also going to have to compromise his own integrity if he’s going to have any chance of succeeding in Gotham City. So I feel like that’s kind of a lot about their relationship as characters."

Supanova Pop Culture Expo hits the Melbourne Showgrounds this weekend, 10-12 Apr, and heads to the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre from 17-19 Apr. See the con's website for more information.