Fox’s ‘Gotham’ Finds Its Riddler In Cory Michael Smith

Being April Fool’s Day, it’s a day for joking around, so it seems only fitting that it was announced today that Fox’s upcoming show Gotham has cast actor Cory Michael Smith as Edward Nygma, otherwise known as The Riddler.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Gotham’s Nygma is “a brilliant young forensic scientist working for Gotham PD and a penchant for speaking in rather cryptic language.” Edward Nygma, who was played by Jim Carrey in 1995’s Batman Forever, will have a guest star appearance in the Gotham pilot with an option to expand into a recurring character later in the series.

Smith’s relatively new as an actor, having been in Camp X-Ray with Kristen Stewart earlier this year and an HBO miniseries called Oliver Kitteridge.

Gotham will also star Ben McKenzie as Jim Gordon, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock, Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney (a new character), Sean Pertwee as Alfred Pennyworth and Robin Lord Taylor as The Penguin. In the Gotham pilot, Nygma will help Gordon and Bullock in a Gotham City murder investigation, but his manner of speaking only in riddles will only serve to annoy the two.

Gotham is a prequel series centered around the origins of Commissioner Gordon and is being executive produced by Rome’s Bruno Heller. While most Batman fans will assume that a show titled Gotham would be about Batman, the young actor cast as Bruce Wayne is only 13 years old and will play a pre-teen Bruce. Meaning there really is no Batman in Gotham City… yet.

In the Gotham series, Bruce’s parents have already been murdered and the boy is left under the guidance of Alfred. It’s entirely plausible that after establishing the background stories of the large cast of Gotham’s characters that the show could propel its timeline ahead and eventually unveil Batman played by an older actor.

Historically, Batman has been played by a wealth of actors including Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and Christian Bale and fans of the caped crusader may remember that a television show similar to Gotham, titled Bruce Wayne, failed to make it to production back in 1999. The original series was planned to run around five to six seasons, but it’s unclear at this point whether Gotham has a similar plan laid out for its future.

Gotham has a series order with Fox, but does not yet have a premiere date.

Will you be tuning in to watch Gotham outline the origins of Bruce Wayne and Commissioner Gordon?