Sean Pertwee as "Gotham's" Alfred Pennyworth. Photo copyright of FOX.
Happy New Year! I thought I would kick off 2022 with a new round of Sci-Fi Blast From The Past posts. To new readers, Blast From The Past interviews appeared in-print only and not on-line. Today, Sean Pertwee talks about taking on the iconic role of Alfred Pennyworth in FOX's Gotham. Enjoy!
It is terrible to lose a parent, but imagine losing both your mother and father at the same time. When he was just a child, Bruce Wayne experienced such a tragedy firsthand when his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, were gunned down in cold blood right before his eyes. Luckily, the young heir to the massive Wayne fortune, and who would one day don Batman’s familiar cape and cowl, had the family’s loyal butler Alfred Pennyworth to look after him.
Even after he grew up and took on the crime-fighting persona of The Caped Crusader, Bruce continued to turn to Alfred for advice as his close friend, confidant and mentor. Those times have been well-documented within the pages of DC Comics as well as in the live-action and animated Batman TV series along with several feature films. Only, however, in FOX’s Gotham have Bat-fans been allowed the opportunity to watch the relationship between Alfred the man and Bruce as a young man grow and develop. It was over three years ago that London-born stage and screen actor Sean Pertwee booked the Alfred role, and going into the show’s fourth season, it remains a joy for him to walk (and fight) in the shoes of such an iconic character.
“There weren’t so much acting challenges when I began playing Alfred, other than the fact that sort of very eminent, extraordinary actors had played him before, and now we were seeing this character at a time that he’d never been seen in before,” notes Pertwee, “So it was a distinct honor and privilege to be asked by some of my favorite showrunners, writers and directors – Bruno Heller, Danny Cannon and John Stephens – to be considered to play this character at a very important time in young Master Bruce’s [David Mazouz] life, whereby Alfred is basically his enabler. I actually have a son named Alfred, but our relationship is quite unlike what you see onscreen between Alfred and Bruce. A lot of people were initially appalled by my character’s parenting and communication skills, but the fact is, he was never intended to be or was asked to be a parent or guardian.
“Through Alfred’s and Bruce’s dysfunctionality and darkness, which we’ll discover more about in season four, it’s formed a genuine bond of functionality. The boy needs the man as much as the man needs the boy, and without giving away spoilers, we’re going to be delving deep into Bruce’s and Alfred’s psyches in the upcoming season. I’m very excited by the elements of my character that you’ll see. I think you’ll get to know the person that he once was, and why Alfred is so cosseted in both his apparel and deportment; he sort of wraps himself in his butler’s suit to prevent himself from exploding. I think the closest you saw into Alfred’s inner soul was when his old friend Reggie Payne [David O’Hara] from the SAS [Special Air Services] visited him. Probably the one big initial challenge for me with this role was playing a damaged soul who is trying to communicate with a young damaged soul. That was something very prevalent in my initial discussions with Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon. The thing is, as an actor, you always want to run before you can walk, and what I love about this show is that our characters breathe, develop and are molded by the city. The namesake of the show, Gotham, molds these people into who they become.
“With Alfred, I think the most important aspect of his growth has been the propensity to show emotion, including love, towards Bruce. That was something completely alien to him, and, again, you will discover in season four why Alfred became such a dark soul and untrusting of everyone around him. So for someone like him, it’s a big step to realize you love someone more than yourself, which is true of a father or any parent. When you experience something like that, the world starts to make more sense. At the end of last season, Alfred literally sacrifices his own life to save Master Bruce and make sure grows up to be the man he’s meant to be, and carry on his parents’ legacy. When you read that on the written page, it may seem kind of trite, but that’s the type of person Alfred is. I think it’s an extraordinary soul, or solider, who has such a sense of honor, where you would give up your own life rather than break a blood bond, in Alfred’s case, his blood bond with Thomas Wayne.”
During the past three seasons of Gotham, Detectives Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) and Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue) and the rest of the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) have been involved in a constant tug of war with the city’s powerful criminal element, which is determined to make Gotham its own. More than once, Bruce Wayne has been used as a pawn in this battle, and in the third season, he nearly lost himself to his dark side. Bruce’s mind was taken over by the immortal Ra’s al Ghul (Alexander Siddig), leader of the League of Shadows, who wanted him as his evil heir. In order to break Ra’s hold on Bruce, Alfred pushed his young charge to run him through with a sword and kill him in season three’s penultimate episode Heroes Rise: Destiny Calling. It was quite a moving experience for those in front of and behind the camera.
“For those who might not know it, my late father, Jon Pertwee, was an actor,” says Pertwee. “He starred in Doctor Who, and was a bit of a legend in our country as well as an extraordinary man. Something he always used to say to me, and which he instilled in me as a very young man, is that it didn’t matter what you did, but success is basically being able to do what you love until the day you die. We’ve very privileged in this profession to be able to do just that, and a wonderful example of this is the scene where Bruce kills Alfred.
“Initially in the script there was a flashback montage of Bruce fighting to resist Ra’s influence, and realizing in his mind that Alfred was breaking through with his plan to remind Bruce, ‘If you need to kill me in order to remember who you really are, then kill me.’ That turned into this extraordinary sequence, which David [Mazouz] did probably 20 times, and where he went through the gamut of emotions relating to our relationship onscreen as well as behind the camera. He and I have worked very closely together for the past three-and-a-half-years, so this was an incredible experience as well as an extremely emotional time for both of us. It was kind of awe-inspiring on David’s part, and I’m also pleased with the work I did, but I’m especially proud of how our relationships came through in that scene. I don’t believe there was a dry eye in the house that night when we were filming it, which I think proves we did something right.”
Ra’s was delighted when Bruce killed Alfred, but that pleasure was short-lived. In dying, Alfred did succeed in severing Ra’s mental hold over Bruce, and the young man subsequently returned the favor. In Gotham’s third season finale Heroes Rise: Heavydirthysoul, Bruce uses The Lazarus Pit’s miraculous restorative and healing waters to bring Alfred back to life. The memories, however, of that life and death struggle remain with both Alfred and Bruce, changing as well as strengthening their bond and putting them both on new paths for season four.
“The Gotham showrunners were determined that these two characters finally able to communicate with one another and stop their butting of heads, otherwise the butler becomes a bit of a bitch and the boy becomes a bit of a bitch,” notes Pertwee. “They had to find a way of unifying at some point, which they did, and you’ll now see us move towards the realms of the Alfred and Bruce who everyone knows and loves.
“There’s a moment in season four where Bruce has to further grow, and it’s a difficult time for him as well as Alfred. The two of them hit a large bump in their lives, and as I mentioned earlier, you’re going to see who Alfred was. I’ve talked with our writers since day one about wanting to learn more about Alfred’s relationship with Thomas Wayne, including how they met and why he swore an oath to protect his child. Viewers have seen how physical my character is, which has a lot to do with his not-so-pretty past. There’s going to be a multi-story arc in, I believe, the middle of the fourth season, where you’ll discover an awful lot about who and what Alfred was, along with how unpleasant and dangerous a man he actually was. That’s something I’m super-excited about.”
Having trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Pertwee began his acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and following a three-year tour, continued adding to an already impressive theatrical resume. His feature film credits include Prick Up Your Ears, Event Horizon, Soldier, Blue Juice and Formula 51, while prior to Gotham, he worked on several other TV series such as Chancer, Cadfael, Cold Feet, Agatha Christie’s Marple, Jo, Elementary and The Musketeers. While very much his own person and actor, Pertwee bears quite a resemblance to his father Jon, and appears to have inherited his dad’s physical agility, too. What would the actor say is one of his fondest childhood memories of his father?
“My father had the capability of being able to talk to anyone at any level, which is something I’ve always loved and admired about him, and I hope learned from, too,” says Pertwee. “You could drop him anywhere in the world and he’d be talking to people and making kids laugh. Along with being one of the great raconteurs of all time, my father was interesting and interested in real people. One of the greatest gifts he ever gave me was that he never made me feel patronized. I never felt that I wasn’t worthy or shouldn’t be there. He never talked to me as child, but rather an equal, and always treated me like an equal as well. He truly was amazing.”
Steve Eramo
Comments