As Jim Gordon and John Blake, actors Gary Oldman and Joseph Gordon-Levitt represented the best of the old and young members of the Gotham City Police Force as well as the right and left hand men of Batman. We sat down with Oldman and Gordon-Levitt to talk about being Batman's boys in blue.
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Gary, can you talk us through what you believe Jim Gordon has been doing since The Dark Knight ended and where he is at the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises?
GARY OLDMAN: Well, he's still pushing a rock up a hill in terms of policing Gotham. I mean, we haven't had anyone like the Joker come back but it's kind of imploding, I suppose. I mean ... it's cynical and a world that's cynical and that the poor are poorer and the rich are richer. And I carry around that secret of what happened - what really happened with Batman and Harvey Dent.
Right.
GARY OLDMAN: And it's against type really, he's such a sort of true blue kind of honest guy, Gordon, that I think it's eaten away at him. And it's cost him his marriage and then he sees this young guy who - I guess he sees himself in - or a younger version of Gordon, less jaded. He sort of sees himself in this young rookie.
Joe, what about your character, John Blake?
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: John Blake is a rookie police officer in the Gotham City Police Department and an idealist, an idealist amongst cynics, where everyone around has become sort of set in their ways and just bowing to the status quo.
I think he's a guy that'll raise his hand and say, I'm not sure everything's right with this and shouldn't we be looking at this, or, shouldn't we be asking this question? And, you know, questioning authority doesn't always meet with the warmest reception but it's often the right thing to do.
How were you welcomed into the cast? You have worked with Chris [Nolan] before but you're new to this group that's been on for two other films. What was that like coming into it?
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Well, having done Inception, it felt very familial and familiar because so much of the crew is the same people, not only Chris and Emma [Thomas] and Wally [Pfister], but everybody from make up to the sound department. And so many of the same people come back and work on Chris's films over and over again. And it's really warm and lovely to feel part of that family and it makes the work better.
I think Chris does it for that reason ultimately, not just because it's comfortable, but because then there's a shorthand and there's an established way of doing things that then becomes efficient. And I think that's a big part of why his movies turn out so well is because he's got a crew that's really on it.
GARY OLDMAN: There's a Nolan Repertory Company.
JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT: Yes, the Nolan Repertory Company.