Gotham’s Milo Ventimiglia Dishes on The Ogre, His Ties to Barbara Kean and More

A dangerous character who sets his sights on Gordon’s ex-fiancee Barbara, it’s hard to say just how he’ll present a big enough threat to Gotham to close out the season with…but with a multiple-episode story arc dedicated to him, he’s recurring more than almost any other original character on the series to date.

Ventimiglia joined ComicBook.com to talk about the character, the challenges of playing a truly despicable character, and why he’s glad The Ogre isn’t in the comics.

With Heroes, it was original characters even if it was playing with genre tropes. Here, everyone else is recognizable. Do you find that freeing, or do you kind of wish you had some reference material?

No, if anything I thought it was incredibly freeing but luckily, I had these great words that Bruno Heller and those guys had created and trusted me with. I got really lucky; you could jump into this genre of television and be bogged down by the idea of who the character was to the fans.

When I voiced Wolverine for the Marvel animated series, that terrified me. There were all these great actors who had done great takes on it before me and all of a sudden I’m the new guy doing a new version. Are people going to like it or are people going to hate it or are people going to resent the fact that you’re even doing it?

So it was freeing to have a wholly new character, but still a badass, dark, sick character.

Love. He’s motivated by love. He’s a man looking for love. His means of getting it are as admirable as anybody else’s, but his execution for lack of a better word of whether or not a woman is willing to love him the way he’s hoping to is wrong. It is discovered pretty quickly why he is the way he is and you do find out what his problem is — but also, he is a human being, he’s just on the far opposite end of being a good human being. There is something in there — a want to be loved — that is driving him as a man. But when he can’t be loved the way he wants to be loved, that’s when his irrational side comes out.

Would you call him kind of an opposite to Gordon? I mean, Gordon is a lot more human here than idealized.

Yeah. I think the nice thing about this version of Jim Gordon, as well as Ben’s portrayal and the way Bruno and the boys are writing it, is that he’s a boy scout but he’s a boy scout that’s unconventional. Ultimately, who he is, he’s there for good. He’s honor and justice and he wants to fight for that and help people that are oppressed be free and live happy in their lives in Gotham. Jason Lennon is selfish, where Jim Gordon is mostly selfless. They are good adversaries and it’s a good foil to play with, having Jim go up at Jason Lennon at the end of this first season arc.

Where that propels anybody else who’s affected by The Ogre? I know there’s photos of Erin [Richards] and I — and whats that going to do for her? It’ll be interesting.

Who else have you had a chance to play off of? It seems like somebody as morally gray as Bullock, for instance, would respond differently to you than Gordon.

Look, I’ll be honest. I think Bullock responds with a lot of fear toward The Ogre. He cares about his friend, he cares about his partner, and he knows how everything’s going down. Bullock is telling Jim Gordon to let it go before The Ogre goes after someone that he cares about.

I think the interaction — there’s a whole lot of personalities to put together on one screen. If you have them all sitting in one room, maybe a group therapy session would be interesting? But outside of that, everybody’s pretty much operating on their own stories.

You’re kind of a pillar in the geek community. How did you end up at Gotham first instead of S.H.I.E.L.D. or The Flash or something?

[Laughs] You know, it was something that I got a phone call. I had gotten home from doing some press in Europe for a show that I have over at Sony called Chosen, and I got a call from my agent saying, “You got an offer on Gotham.”

And they told me what the arc was and what the character was and they sent the first script over and I just went, “Wow.” First of all, just creatively, this is interesting and this is awesome and I’m into it.

Then secondarily, I’m a huge fan of Bruno Heller’s work and have been friends with Danny Cannon for a really long time. So great character, I get to speak some great words from a great writer, and then I’m hanging out with my friend? Sure! Sounds like a good time. 

So it honestly was just something that kind of came my way and I happened to be free and I was excited about being a part of it and excited that they’d have me. It’s interesting having a little bit of cred in the genre world by Heroes or comic books or Marvel animated stuff that I’ve done. I think I’m just lucky. I’m a lucky guy who gets a chance to play some cool characters with some great people.

Obviously, everyone likes to think of themselves as a good person. What do you draw on to create a despicable character?

I always look at my own life and just be myself.

…I’m kidding, actually. I really don’t; this guy’s horrible!

I always try to find the human quality. What drives them? What makes them believe that they are right in doing what they’re doing? And just try to identify with that and understand that people are people and they’re going to do bad things or wrong things. You can think the worst stuff, you can do the worst stuff. As long as it doesn’t affect anybody else, it’s like okay. That’s when you’ve crossed the line and you’re labeled as bad and somebody has to stop you. 

We all have a dark nature in us. All of us do. I just try to understand the motive and let loose on anything else. Whatever dark whims are inside myself when the cameras are rolling, I’m just kind of a slave to the character.