When Gotham returns for season 3, you’re likely to notice that lil’ Ivy Pepper will have gone through a bit of a growth spurt. Yup, the proto-Poison Ivy has been aged up from a charmingly deranged young’un to a full-grown adult. (If Bruce Wayne doesn’t notice a difference he must be a real lousy detective.)
IGN had an informative chat with Gotham producers John Stephens and Ken Woodruff (plus a gaggle of cast members) at FOX’s Television Critics Association after party. We’ve already received a good bit of dish on some of what’s to come in the show’s future and now the Gotham higher-ups are offering details on what to expect when Maggie Geha takes over the Ivy role from Clare Foley.
“The idea of Poison Ivy came along because one of the escapees from Indian Hill has the power when he touches you he takes away years of your life, he ages you immediately,” Stevens explained. “So he touches Ivy early on but he didn’t hold onto her for very long so he does a little bit of aging [to her]. So for us we really wanted to play with the idea of transformation. Version one of the character, version two. And so much of Ivy of the canon that we wanted to play, we had to make her a little older.”
Don’t expect any sort of Ivy/Bruce romance in the show’s on deck circle. David Mazouz, the actor that portrays Bruce Wayne, shared that while Ivy may play a big role in his character’s life, she’ll be more of a “sister figure” to the future Caped Crusader. Considering that her character is now an adult and Bruce is not, it’s sensible to take the whole hooking up thing off the table.
Gotham‘s new Ivy also cautions not to expect her TV persona to showcase her powers for a while.
“I don’t think we’ll see any super powers stuff. I think that would be way further down the line especially since this is an origin story show,” said Maggie Geha, who succeeds Clare Foley in the role of Ivy “Pamela” Pepper. “So I think it’s going to be more about discovering how other people perceive her and what means. A lot of people are focused on her sexuality. I think Ivy, in my opinion, doesn’t really feel sexual about anybody. I think if she notices this person is attracted to me, finds me appealing in a sexual way, I’m going to use that to my benefit. It’s more of a manipulative thing than anything.”
Season 3 of Gotham is set to begin on Fox on September 19.
(Via IGN & ScreenCrush)
