New Batman Commissioner Gordon Actor Wants Justice League Role to Reflect Comics

It was announced last month that Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons would play Commissioner James Gordon in the upcoming Justice League movie, and now we know how he plans to take on the role of Gotham City's head of police.

In an interview with Collider, Simmons revealed that he'll read the comics to prepare, as opposed to watching past movies where other actors played Gordon.

"Obviously, a lot of really wonderful actors have played that character previously, and most of them I saw at the time the movies came out, never imagining that I would be doing the same thing," he said. "So, I can't say that I don't have some impression of that character in my head that's based on what I saw, but I'm not planning on going back and watching any of the other films.

"I'm just planning on learning as much as I can about him through the comics and getting my feet wet in the first movie, and then hopefully continuing on from there."

He said this comes from his days in theater, where he wouldn't look at past performances when wanting to do his own version.

"I'm sure there will be differences and similarities with what Gary Oldman or Pat Hingle have done before, but I'm just going to try to do my take on it and be as informed as I can about the rich history of the Batman universe, going into it," Simmons said.

Simmons has had past experience with comic book movies, having played J. Jonah Jameson in the original Spider-Man trilogy. Simmons notes "there are easy comparisons to make," but he says he understands they're very different characters.

"My understanding, from what I've learned so far about Commissioner Gordon, is that he's the older guy with the mustache who relates with our hero in a certain way," he explained. "Other than that, it's a vastly different character and much more of a stronger, impactful character in the DC universe."

Simmons might play the iconic police commissioner in other movies as well. A new Batman movie with Ben Affleck was made official last week. WME co-CEO Patrick Whitesell says Affleck's written a Batman script and that it's "a really cool idea." It's not been confirmed that the script Affleck's written will be used for the upcoming Batman movie.