The Butler Did It

“We Get All The Benefits Of The Dc Badge But Then We Do What We Fucking Like.”

- Jack Bannon

PENNYWORTH is a brand new DC show charting the untold origin story of a 26-yearold Alfred Pennyworth in 1960s London. STARBURST sat down with titular star JACK BANNON, BEN ALDRIDGE (Thomas Wayne) and PALOMA FAITH, who plays the villain Bet Sykes, to talk about Batman’s enduring appeal, straying from the expected, and building a new world from the ground up...

STARBURST: What drew you to your respective characters, and to the show itself?

Jack Bannon: Like anything else, it was an email from the agent. I read the synopsis of what the show was going to be and I thought, “Oh, this is a bit strange!” They sent the pilot script along with the request for an audition tape, so I read the script and that’s what really got me, because it was everything that I thought a comic book TV show isn’t. Page three of the script had a big description of this dark version of London where it was set, and [creator] Bruno [Heller] clearly had some incredible ideas. From that moment, I knew this was something a bit different.

Ben Aldridge: I think if you hear the words “it’s a comic book spin-off” you think Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Gotham - not that there’s anything wrong with those TV shows - that are set in a more modern world and follow a more obvious route. And when I first opened the script, I was like “Okay, I wonder if it’s going to be like that.” And then it wasn’t - it was weird, twisted, with lots of amazing pop culture references, in a very dark and dangerous world that was like a violent espionage thriller. I just knew anything could happen here, and they’re building a totally new world that we haven’t even seen in the comic books. So this is going to be very original, whatever it is.