‘Gotham’ Star David Mazouz Spills On “Playboy” Bruce, Sexy Poison Ivy, and Season Three

David Mazouz is one of the few people in the world who can say, “I’m Batman,” and it’s actually true. The 15-year-old actor plays young Bruce Wayne on Fox’s Gotham, a series that follows the untold story of Gotham City before Bruce becomes Batman. The series has seen a bunch of shake ups over the past two seasons and showrunners teased even more for Season Three at this summer’s TCA Press Tour. During their panel, they addressed some of the controversy surrounding the recasting of Ivy Pepper, aka Poison Ivy, as an older, vampier siren (now played by 28-year-old Maggie Geha), and hinted that Mazouz would be exploring Bruce’s “playboy persona.”

Decider got a chance to visit the set of Gotham last Friday to see the cast in action. We got a chance to chat with Mazouz in the Wayne Manor library about those upcoming storylines and what’s going to play out with Bruce’s new double. Oh, and we also got Mazouz to spill on which Suicide Squad villain he’d like to see show up on Gotham…

Decider: I have a question for you because I was at TCA and I remember them teasing that Bruce would play around with his “playboy” persona…

David Mazouz: Absolutely!

D: Can you describe what that entails?

DM: I don’t want to give too much away, but basically what’s gonna happen is… Well, we know Bruce Wayne in the comic books has this “Richie Rich” smoke and mirrors persona, which is used to cover up, so if anybody ever, ever in a million years would ever suspect Bruce Wayne of being Batman, they’d say, “No way, not that drunken playboy.”

D: (teasing) “Not that Ryan Lochte!”

DM: Exactly. And how John Stephens, our executive producer, kind of explained it to me, Bruce Wayne when he’s an adult, he does that persona so well, he plays it really, really well. Was that ever real for him? Did that ever actually happen? Was it ever a reality? And so what we’re gonna do in Gotham is, we’re gonna play with that playboy persona, party boy persona, but it’s not going to be used to cover up secret affairs that are going on, secret investigations, or secret fighting with evil. It’s going to be a reality. We haven’t shot much of it yet but it’ll be coming towards the middle of the season.

D: I feel like I’ve watched you grow up a little bit on this show and immediately my reaction was, “No! Poor little David! Don’t go into the wild world yet!” But obviously Poison Ivy, they’ve aged her up this season. How does that change the dynamic with the characters now that she’s being played by an older actress?

DM: Yeah. Bruce never really had much of a relationship with the former Ivy in Gotham. So the dynamic, I think, is weird at first but it’s not so weird that he can’t really get over it because he wasn’t even that accustomed — he’ll have a lot to do with this new Ivy, but he didn’t have much to do with old Ivy, so I think the dynamic, as far as Bruce goes, is probably — like I said, it’ll probably be a little weird at first but it’ll be nothing too weird.

D: And how’s the double come into play? Is that something that gets exhausted quickly or are we gonna see it be a long arc story, where you’ll have this double making mayhem in the city?

DM: Well, I think the thing is that a lot of people were saying that this double is an evil version of Bruce Wayne, but that’s false. He’s not evil, and he’s not a version of Bruce Wayne. He’s a completely different person. He was created in a lab, and the only similarity that they have is that they look exactly like one another. But they talk differently, they communicate differently, they think differently, they walk differently. Everything about them is different. And he will have a major arc at the very beginning of the season, first couple episodes, and then he’ll go away for a little bit, but he’ll be back, and he’ll have a lot to do with the regular Bruce’s storyline for the rest of the season.

D: And have you had to act opposite yourself?

DM: Yes.

D: How was that experience?

DM: Very, very weird. And difficult! What’s a good way to explain this? I think the hard thing about it is finding a chemistry with myself, because I’m finding chemistry with nothing. I don’t find it too hard to be in the world of each character, but anytime you have a relationship on screen, any time two characters talk to each other or communicate in any sort of capacity, there is a relationship forming. There’s a chemistry that happens. That has to, of course, happen with these two characters, but when you don’t have anybody to act off of it’s very difficult. So I guess that’s what I found most difficult, but it was fun! It was weird, but it was fun.

D: Have you seen Suicide Squad?

DM: I did.

D: I know with Killer Croc, they have plans to bring him on, but if you could have one villain show up on Gotham and play off of, who would it be?

DM: I think it would be Deadshot. I loved Will Smith in that movie, I thought he was brilliant. I’d love to have maybe like a young 20-year-old that’s like, shooting things up. I think that would be cool.

Gotham returns to Fox on September 19, 2016.

[Watch Gotham Seasons One on Netflix] or [Watch Gotham‘s last five episodes on Hulu]

[Photos: Fox & Everett Collection]