Ben McKenzie brings old-fashioned integrity to 'Gotham'

Ben McKenzie grew up in Texas and became famous at 24 for playing a moody young Californian on “The O.C.” Now that he’s starring in Fox’s “Gotham” as Detective James Gordon, future friend of Batman and the only good cop in Gotham City, it feels as if he’s new to New York.

But there’s a drab building on Ninth Avenue that he called home for a year during his brief I’ll-be-your-server-tonight phase, and on a recent morning he stands in front of it looking acutely embarrassed while a reporter repeatedly buzzes his former fourth-floor walk-up.

The situation highlights several traits of McKenzie, who at 36 has already been the leading man in three successful television series (including “Southland”). He’s a good sport. He’s unassuming, showing up early for an interview, with no handlers, and waiting patiently on a Hell’s Kitchen sidewalk. And as a former high school football player, he can take a hit: His forehead sports an ugly, purple, 2-inch gash, suffered the day before when a fight scene got too vigorous.

“Gotham” is filmed at Steiner Studios at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and on location around the city, and McKenzie, back in New York after more than a decade, is now living comfortably in the East Village. But he remembers well the feeling of sharing a tiny room with bunk beds, of waiting on tables and doing data entry, of trying to find work just as the Sept. 11 attacks battered the downtown theater scene. There were times when following the footsteps of his father, a prominent Austin, Texas, lawyer, seemed like a good idea.

“I’m sure there are actors who never doubted for a minute that they had to do this,” McKenzie said, adding, “I’m not one of them. I’m way too much of a realist. Or a wimp.”

There is a throwback quality to McKenzie, in both his polite manner and square-jaw looks, and it meshes with his roles so far. Antiheroes like Walter White and Don Draper may be all the rage on TV these days, but McKenzie’s characters, despite their imperfections, have been classic Hollywood-style idealists. In “Gotham,” Gordon is the new detective trying to clean up a debauched city and a corrupt police force.

“I think he has what we needed in Gordon, that sense of integrity, not just being true to oneself but a well-mannered patience and generosity,” said Danny Cannon, an executive producer of “Gotham.” “That then gets you labeled as being old-fashioned, but that’s true, and that’s a trait that’s in a lot of movie stars.”

The manners are evident when a current tenant of the Ninth Avenue apartment comes down the stairs, not happily, to see who woke him up. He’s an aspiring musician, rather than an actor, but McKenzie quickly charms him anyway, and everyone heads upstairs for a look at the old digs, which are as cramped and dark as ever. McKenzie takes a long look at the door to his old room, which is closed because the two roommates now sharing it are still asleep.

“When you live in those quarters,” he said later over coffee, “maybe some people deal with it better than others, but it always felt like it was bearing down on me.”

The seriousness and sincerity he projects in an interview are attested to by anyone you care to ask – eventually you give up and start writing down “integrity” and “decency” automatically. Josh Schwartz, creator of “The O.C.,” recalled, “He took it really seriously, and brought just a lot of integrity, and integrity is not always required in a Fox teen drama.”

Responsibility is part of the package with “Gotham.” Cannon and the show’s creator, Bruno Heller, supervise the series long distance from their Los Angeles base, and McKenzie relishes taking a leadership role on the set.

He described “Gotham,” a “Batman” prequel that takes place when Bruce Wayne is still a child, as “a serialized cop procedural set in a mythological world.” Characters like the Penguin and the Riddler appear as their younger selves, but no one has superpowers, which sets “Gotham” apart from another new, successful DC Comics-based series, CW’s “Flash.”

“The Flash can run really, really fast,” McKenzie said. “They say, ‘You’ve got to get here,’ and he’s like, ‘No problem.’ We can’t do that. And I love that.” Pointing to the welt on his forehead, he added, “Jim Gordon certainly doesn’t have powers.”

And as long as the quiet, guarded leading-man thing is working for him – asked about acting role models, he rattles off a few names, then adds, “Steve McQueen, of course” – he’s not worried about being typecast.

“I did a high school Q&A, and an actor said: ‘I’m worried about getting stereotyped.’ A 16-year-old kid. And I’m like: ‘Look, if you are being stereotyped, that means you have something to stereotype. So they’re casting you. That is an amazing thing. That is a gift. Worry about being pigeonholed in your 50s.’ ”

This story was originally published December 3, 2014 at 8:00 PM.