The whole fourth episode with Cristin, and that scene where she realizes she’s going to go to Arkham, what a scene. I can stand back and appreciate those. I think it’s hard for me to stand back and appreciate my own. It’s the other ones that I’m in awe of.
Rhenzy, let’s lay Vic to rest. How was it getting to add your own stamp in the Batman mythos with this tragic, impressionable character who grounds the narrative and this world of organized crime and losing one’s soul?
It was an honor. I was also afraid that maybe people wouldn’t understand it, that maybe people are so used to seeing “Ozes” and “Sofias,” the badasses doing badass stuff. I was afraid people wouldn’t embrace Victor in that way because he’s too sensitive, he feels too much, or he’s “too weak.” I, the creators, the producers, the writers, and the directors always saw it as what would probably really happen if somebody didn’t just want to go around murdering people in cold blood. A 17-year-old kid probably wouldn’t just take to it like that.
It’ll probably take some time, it’ll hurt, and it won’t be fun. Taking a real grounded approach to it and bringing it into reality, I thought it was awesome. I was afraid that people wouldn’t understand it and, what I realized, is that people have really embraced Victor as a character, embraced his innocence and how good he is. They seem protective of him, they don’t want him to go. They don’t want him to meet a tragic demise.
It’s been eye-opening. It’s taught me about the world and that maybe I didn’t give the world enough credit and was cynical about how they’d perceive him. I’ve learned that on this show, to give the audience a bit more credit with empathy, that they would be more empathetic when I was afraid that they wouldn’t be. That’s been nice.
I think that’s who Victor is at his core. He is the kid who, after Batman fights whoever, the buildings get blown up, and whatever happens, he’s the personification of the people who are affected by this thing on the ground level. We get to see that, see the everyday person and what happens to them. Their families are lost, they don’t have any clothes, their girlfriend and people they know are scared of the city and leaving Gotham. That’s the human aspect of what’s going on in the city and Victor embodies that.