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Batwoman030 | W W W. S C I FI N OW.CO.U K
is to Batwoman what his father was to Batman,
but actor Camrus Johnson didn’t know any of
this at the time of his fi rst audition. “I actually
didn’t know that the character was Luke Fox
when I auditioned for the show. DC tends to be
pretty secretive about their projects,” he says,
in somewhat of an understatement. It was only
when he did a little online digging and learnt
that fans had already guessed that his character
would turn out to be Luke Fox that he got really
excited. He describes Lucius Fox as “one of the
coolest characters ever made”, and Luke as “this
funny, neurotic, super smart dude who is holding
a lot of secrets” – particularly that of Batman’s
secret identity. So when Kate comes knocking
at Wayne Tower looking for information on her
missing cousin Bruce Wayne, Luke tries – and
fails – to stop her fi nding out more.
From that point onwards the two become
occasionally-reluctant allies – a “yin and
yang” relationship, according to Johnson –
with Luke providing Kate with all the tech and
paraphernalia she needs to become Batwoman,
fi lling the Bat-shaped hole that Gotham has
been struggling with for the last three years.
“We had to fi nd a way to make Batman part of
the story without seeing Batman,” Dries explains.
(DC may have lifted the Gotham ban, but
Batman is still off the cards – for now at least.)
“And so I wanted Kate to come home to a city
that needed her, and they needed her to fi gure
out a way to save them.” Johnson’s Luke is on
the same page as Kate, telling us that “all he
really wants is for Gotham City to be safe, and
he takes after Batman in that regard”.
Johnson describes Luke as both an ally to
Batman, and a fan. In that respect, Johnson’s
not that different to the character he plays.
When we talk to him on the phone he gets
audibly excited about the nitty-gritty of the
Batman universe, and his new place in it. “I
grew up watching the movies, watching the
shows, playing the videogames,” he says,
adding that, in Christopher Nolan’s Bat-trilogy,
he’d always been a particular fan of Morgan
Freeman’s Lucius Fox. He read up on Luke Fox
too, reading his comic book appearances in
Batwing, the superhero alter-ego that Luke
later adopts. When we ask if he hopes to play
Luke as Batwing down the line, Johnson gives a
fi rm “1,000 percent... if I could play one of the
greatest superheroes ever written, especially in
the DC Universe, why wouldn’t I? But I don’t want
to rush to get to Batwing. He’s such an incredible
character, but I also think Luke Fox himself is
such an incredible character and he deserves as
much light as possible for who he is, rather than
who he becomes. But, man, as soon as Batwing
becomes a thing I’m going to lose it!”
Johnson also confesses to losing it when he
visited the Batcave set. “When I fi rst walked into
the Batcave on my fi rst day I cried,” he laughs.
“Who gets to say they’re going to the Batcave
for work?!” He tells us that the set is “gorgeous”
and “gigantic”, and that pilot director Marcos
Siega “put so many little hints in there, and
comic book lovers, if they keep an eye out, can
see some really cool stuff”.
The Batcave is also a set that expands over
time, with more rooms and details being added
as the show continues – and it’s far from the
show’s only spectacular set. Johnson tells us
that he regularly fi nds himself “trying to open
things that I think are real because it looks
so impressive”.
The detailed production design is all part
of the grounded ethos that the show operates
within. Unlike the other Arrowverse shows,
Batwoman doesn’t feature superpowers, and as
a result Dries believes that “everything should
feel real. That’s the whole point of Batman.
Bruce Wayne just trained really hard, he was
really disciplined, he had a tonne of money, he
built – using science – these tools that made him
super awesome”. Marrying that tone up with
the rest of the Arrowverse, especially during
crossovers, is especially challenging. “When
you put a character like [Batwoman] next to
Supergirl, what tone is that generating, and
how do we make that feel like it’s not, in a way,
ruining all of the work that we’ve done to make
our show feel like grounded show? That was the
biggie, and I think we succeeded in doing it,”
Dries adds.Kate has a complicated
relationship with her father.Ruby Rose was suggested
early on to play Batwoman.