Superhero shows provide ‘solace’ in a dark world
Stratford theatre veteran Colm Feore plays Dollmaker in Fox’s Gotham TV series
Spoiler alert: This story contains spoilers for Season 1 of Gotham.
If you’re looking for someone with the chops to play full-blown psycho — think the madness of King Lear — then who better than one of Canada’s great Shakespearean actors?
The producers of FOX’s Gotham must have thought so too after casting Colm Feore as Dr. Francis Dulmacher, also known in comic book lore as the Dollmaker — a contemporary version of Dr. Frankenstein.
“I think there is a foundation that classically trained actors have in bringing heightened characters to life without making it too incredible,” Feore told the Star. “Everything I learned about playing King Lear, I brought to the Dollmaker.”
Feore was most recently in movie theatres with a filmed performance of his critically acclaimed turn as the mad king at the Stratford Festival.
And while he has played everyone from Pierre Trudeau and Glenn Gould to the king of the frost giants in Thor, the Dollmaker is one of his toughest and scariest creations.
In one memorable scene, he plays brilliantly against flinty mob boss Fish Mooney (Jada Pinkett Smith) when the two supervillains meet for the first time.
Mooney graphically gouges out her eye with a spoon so that he won’t be able to harvest her organs. Feore is impassive and unmoved. Instead, he simply replaces her eye.
“It’s a case of anything you can do I can do better. And scarier,” says Feore.
In last Monday’s episode, we saw Mooney finally attempting to make her big break from the Dollmaker’s prison, with consequences abounding for both villains.
“With the Dollmaker, his mission and interest is infinitely more scientific and philosophical than simply trying to kill someone,” says Feore. “He is filled with enthusiasm for his work. He’s clearly mad, but he doesn’t see it that way. He is on a journey of discovery and there may be collateral damage along the way.”
Feore says he shot the scene with Pinkett Smith in Yonkers, N.Y, in an old mansion.
“It looked like a World War I hospital recovery room. Paint peeling off the walls, very ghostly and creepy. And Jada was remarkable. We had four pages of dialogue to knock off and we got to try different things. It was also shot in order, which is very unusual, so you can see the progression in their relationship as he gets more comfortable with her.”
On his first day on the Gotham set, Feore says his wife, theatre director Donna Feore (who is directing The Sound of Music at Stratford this month), reminded him to do “simple, proper acting.”
That’s evident onscreen, as Feore resists the attempt to overplay the character — a trap that has befallen many a comic book villain. But it makes him much more human.
It’s about “being raw and emotionally centred and finding that kernel of truth in the character,” says Feore. “I didn’t have to worry about playing crazy. Dollmaker is passionate about what he does as many of us are. Except you probably shouldn’t put a knife in his hand.”
The actor says he didn’t go back to read the original comic books to bone up on the role. But he was a fan of the original Adam West series.
“I remember it with great affection. I remember racing home to watch. And I don’t mean to sound gullible, but I took it seriously. I didn’t think it was camp or crazy or being ironic. I thought it was cool,” says Feore.
Although he brought his own particular spin to the role of the Dollmaker, he says he didn’t tell producers how he thought the villain should be written.
“There were at least three different versions and different evolutions of the Dollmaker over the years. Gotham goes one step further and takes their own imaginative licence. The last thing I wanted to do was say, ‘You know, guys, they did something different in 1968 and this isn’t him.’ They were taking this new iteration of Dollmaker in a particular direction.”
Gotham is but one of many superhero series on television this year. Netflix recently debuted Daredevil, the first of five planned series from the online broadcaster alone. But Feore says he doesn’t see why there should be a saturation point.
“I’m delighted to see the trend. I think we should have a saturation point in reality TV, not in the superhero genre. Reality TV has kicked fiction in the gut for many years. I always believed there would be a pendulum swing back away from stories about inflated, plastic-filled Kardashian-type creatures back to the dramatic.
“Comic books are escapism. The world is a difficult and complicated place, and we are facing difficult times from the Middle East to Eastern Europe and beyond. So I think the genre has gained popularity because we have superheroes in this heightened fictional world who say, ‘I know this is bad. But you know what? I can fix it.’ I think it’s some kind of solace.”
The Batman prequel Gotham airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CTV.
Feore has played Pierre Trudeau, Glenn Gould and the king of the frost giants in Thor. The Dollmaker is one of his scariest creations