Sean Pertwee is a familiar face to us here in the UK and now he’s taking on an iconic role across the pond. Perhaps rivaled only by the inestimable manservant Jeeves, Alfred Pennyworth is a reference quality butler, and his role in the larger Batman mythology cannot be underestimated.

As with much on the TV series Gotham Alfred has evolved through the years and now with this iteration emerges with a more rounded and impactful character than ever.

Stefan Pape sat down with Sean Pertwee ahead of the DVD release of Season One to discuss what’s ahead for Gotham in Season Two.

The new season begins later on this year – what can fans expect? Is it tonally different to the first?

It is the world of Gotham, but what you’ll see are the wheels completely fall off and everything falls into absolute chaos and anarchy. You need to hit the bottom of the barrel before the phoenix can rise from the flames, so what you’re going to see is something more confident, because our fans and our audience knows what we’re doing now in many respects. We’re not reimagining, we’re redefining the mythos behind 75 years of Batman and the characters born out of this city. So this season you’re going to see the city of Gotham descend into chaos, there will be blood on the streets, as Penguin said in the first season.

There’s a new character too, played by James Frain called Galavan, with his band of lunatics called the Maniacs, and they set about to destroy Gotham. So you’ll start to see more focus on the training of Bruce, you’ll also discover, as everybody knows, the secret that Thomas Wayne was keeping with the cave – what was behind that and what he was researching, and what his secret was.

It sounds like there will be an interesting evolution to Bruce and Alfred’s relationship then…

It is, yeah. But also, there’s the introduction of Lucius Fox, the inside man in Wayne Enterprises, and you’ll start to see more of him. So we’re beginning to get a good team together now and the good guys are beginning to amalgamate now. Gordon comes back to the fold and we have Lucius Fox. You’ll start to see the emergence of the band of brothers, people trying to do the right thing.

Chaos sounds good too. We always like chaos.

Yeah, I just read episode three and I cannot tell you… It’s phenomenal, it’s a movie right there. But with all three – you won’t see a marked difference, but you will see a confidence. Because we know the arc, we know where we’re going. The characters have been really well-received now by the fans, so there’s a feeling of confidence within our troupe, and a real, genuine excitement. I cannot wait to see some of this stuff, it’s just fantastic. Also, we get out of the bloody manor [laughs]. We’re not in that flamin’ room drinking cups of tea!

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Having spoken to Hayley Atwell in regards to Agent Carter, prior to finding out they’d been given a second season – and she was so hopeful she’d get the second season, but knew it was completely out of her hands. When you got that call to inform you that you’ve got the second season commissioned, you must have been so relieved and thrilled?

Listen, one of my biggest ambitions was to work in New York, all of my friends have worked here – and we sometimes say, look at us. Look at where we are. There’s a real, palpable excitement. We never wanted this to go away, we worked very hard and we have taken it very seriously. We have great fun together and we’re very much a company and we so didn’t want it to finish. But we felt that if we got our heads down and we worked that wouldn’t be the case. We have a confident stride now, and we’re over the moon. So proud to be here doing a second season, I can’t tell you. I just hope there will be many more.

It must also vindicate what you’re doing is working?

Yeah, that’s right. We listen to the fans and what’s liked. You never know what’s going to work on a first season, but we’re going into the second season full of confidence. I can’t talk about the first three episodes, but they’re just phenomenal. The standard of what I’ve seen, of the Arkham Asylum, the Penguin’s Lair – it’s incredible. I can’t tell you how exciting it is, even now, at this stage in my career and my life, to be doing something like this. It’s operatic in its scale, I’m so honoured to be here.

When playing a role like Alfred, who is so well known and had great actors tackle it in the past – can it be a challenge to play that role in a way that fans will identify with, to play up with the traditional aspects of the character, and yet at the same time bring something completely new and unique to the role?

Everybody knows where Alfred ends up don’t they? So the difficulty was to find a truth and a real heartbeat to the character. So we had to go way back, to really why he was there in the first place. It was always obvious to me – he was there because he was Thomas Wayne’s ally, his butler, his confidant, and of course was ex-military. A lot of the fans were quite surprised when they saw my version initially, but they’re beginning to warm to the idea. Of course he was the original enabler, it wasn’t when Bruce Wayne was 18 and decided to become a masked vigilante, he goes way, way back. What piqued his interest? What gave him the discipline? Had Alfred not been there, Batman would be a masked villain – not a vigilante. It’s an integral part of the Batman story, and you start to discover more about it. Much more direction in the second season, almost a contractual agreement drawn between the young Master Bruce and Alfred.

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Jeremy Irons is now tackling that role in the forthcoming Batman vs Superman film – do you know Jeremy at all, and have you spoken to him about how he is going about approaching the role?

No, I haven’t. I’ve seen very little about the new movie, just the trailer online. I have no clues where he’s going with it, but he’s a fine actor so I’m sure it will be great. I can’t wait to see the film.

Were there any specific comics you were advised to read or any you sought out yourself to help understand the relationship between Bruce and Alfred?

No there wasn’t. If I’m really honest, I tried to stay away because we were redefining the character. I’ve gone back and looked at them, I did do some research into Alfred, but of course we have to find the truth. Like I said before, we know where he ends up, but how did he get there?

In regards to Bruce Wayne – can you see him becoming a vigilante at any point in Gotham? Perhaps in a few series down the line…?

It’s not really a spoiler to say this, but we definitely see him becoming a lot more active, and see his interests being piqued already, especially with the discovery of what his father was investigating. He’s definitely evolved.

So finally, in the season one finale we have the discovery of the bat cave – where do you think this will lead on to next, and do you think Batman should be introduced?

Batman doesn’t exist until he’s 25. So it’s about the influences that lead to him running away. So it’s all about the building of it. We’ll see. He’ll definitely be active, but it’s not just something he decided to do when he was 18 – it’s something that had interested him, and he went off to train himself to come back and be ready for it. So I don’t know. He won’t be the Batman you know.

Gotham Season One is out on Blu-ray and DVD on 5th October. Season Two is coming soon.