Jada Pinkett Smith is one of the main villains in the new Batman television series Gotham.
The series focuses on detective James Gordon and his dealings around the time that Bruce Wayne’s parents are killed.
Smith, who has an estimated net worth of $20 million, plays Fish Mooney, who is first introduced bashing in someone’s head.
“She has the capacity for certain amounts of wrong doing,” Smith told Zap2it. “She wants Gotham and has to go all the way. She has to be ruthless.”
Fish Mooney was created specifically for the television show, with Smith drawing acting inspiration for the character from actress Norma Desmond and assassinated Medellin Cartel drug lord, Griselda Blanco.
“The amount of power Griselda had,” Smith said, fuels that side of the character while Norma Desmond is the mask, the old Hollywood glamour and that’s how Fish Mooney is.”
(FOX)
“My character wants to have her chance at taking over Gotham — she works for the Falcone family which is one of the mob families that’s running Gotham,” Pinkett Smith added to The Hollywood Reporter.
“A lot of people say she is the mother of evil and has influenced some of the villains that we know already. When I prepared for the role, I did a mashup of [drug lord] Griselda Blanco and Norma Desmond. I took away Norma Desmond’s dramatics — when Fish Mooney walks into a room, everything has a dramatic flair to it.”
While Oswald Cooblepot, who eventually turns into the Penguin, is a big focus in the first several episodes, Fish Mooney is not far behind, according to Donal Logue (Harvey Bullock, Gordon’s partner).
“You get to meet these people, it’s like, ‘well, why did they turn bad?’” Logue told Zap2it, referring to the pre-villains.
“They didn’t wake up one day and be a fully-formed Danny DeVito ‘The Penguin.’ Were they picked on? Were they ridiculed? How did they form? For me, the most fascinating part of being in the show is to go, ‘oh, so that’s how he decides to turn his back on the good side and go to the dark side’… you always kind of wonder what made someone the way they were.”
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