Gotham Knights: Olivia Rose Keegan Teases How the Comics Influences Duela (Exclusive)

The CW’s latest DC-inspired series, Gotham Knights, is well underway on the network, with the series taking viewers into territory familiar to many fans — Gotham City and the world of Batman, albeit with a twist. This take on the iconic city and lore sees a city in the wake of Batman’s murder with his adopted son and a trio of young criminals falsely accused of committing the crime. Among those accused is Duela, aka The Joker’s Daughter. A character with roots in the comics, Duela is a big of a wild card of a character and now, Olivia Rose Keegan teases how the comics influence the character.

Speaking with ComicBook.com, Keegan admitted that she’s always been a fan of Batman, but it was working on Gotham Knights that helped deepen her knowledge of the world and the legacy.

“This job definitely immersed me further into the world. I’ve always been a fan of the whole Batman legacy and the Batman world, but my knowledge didn’t run that deep,” she said. “And as you know, the knowledge can run deep with this fan base. It’s amazing and I admire it so much and so this job has definitely helped me dive into that. And our creative team, it’s just a plethora of DC comic book knowledge. And so, I’ve gotten to pick their brains about every little thing. It’s been so fun.”

One of the things about the comic book knowledge that fans have, however, is that some versions of the character in comics are not actually the daughter of the Joker, but is the daughter of Two-Face, aka Harvey Dent. While Keegan couldn’t say if that is a direction that Gotham Knights will take this Duela, she did talk about the “crazy sh-t” the character does in comics — and that she’s had a lot of fun learning this aspect of the character.

“I did not know of Duela before and I had such a fun time reading the comics,” Keegan said. “And I know she does some crazy sh-t in those comics. And so, I guess I won’t reveal whether it goes that direction or not. That was definitely a direction. So, I love that that’s out there and that exists. But I think Duela has a lot of comic book material and inspiration to pull from, but she’s also her own original version of the character which is something I love. So, it can be a little bit of both.”

Gotham Knights airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on The CW.