FEATURE STORY

Reunited: Wright, seen here with 007 himself (Daniel Craig), reprises his role as Bond buddy Felix Leiter in the upcoming film No Time to Die.

revolves around Batman’s second year of fghting crime and rallying the citizens of Gotham City against the corruption around them. They, too, are in it together.

The flm, like so many of Wright’s projects, boasts a truly fabulous all-star cast that also includes o Kravitz, Paul Dano, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis and Colin Farrell. And while there’s been a big to-do about the decision to cede previous Batman Ben A eck’s cape and cowl to Pattinson, it isn’t the only casting choice fans are buzzing about: much has been made of Wright being cast as the frst Black Commissioner James “Jim” Gordon in the DC Comics universe. Which, quite frankly, he fnds to be asinine. He hasn’t reinvented the wheel, and he doesn’t feel this is a conversation we should be having in the 21st century.

“If you give it a little bit of thought, Batman and the characters within Gotham City are fuid, evolving creatures,” he says. “It would be doing a disservice, in fact, to these stories and to the history if we were actually beholden to the details of the original. When Shakespeare wrote female characters, they were written to be played by young boys. Are we to hold on to that tradition now in the 21st century because that was the limited lane that people were allowed at the time? It’s ridiculous. Beyond that, Gordon is many things. He’s relative to Gotham City, to the Gotham City police department, to Batman, to justice and to corruption — and none of those things require that he be white.”

He continues, “There have been some who I think have made more of it than they probably should, which I think reveals some defciency [in our country]. In its frst iteration in 1939, Gotham City was fashioned after an American metropolis much like New York City or Chicago. In 1939, New York was 90 percent white. The power structure in law enforcement in that city at that time would not have been inclusive of someone who looked like me; that’s the historical fact. But as these stories have continually evolved over these many decades, not only through the comics but also through the flms, they’ve been reinterpreted through writers, directors and actors to be more contemporary to the times than they were made. Right now, if we were to imagine a Gotham City based on an American metropolis, to think of it as a place that’s only inhabited by white people is to be pretty idiotic. To be beholden to the demographic reality of 1939 urban America — what the f--k is the purpose of that?”

Especially nowadays, Wright seems to have little patience for idiocy of any variety. He only wants things that are going to bring him happiness. Nearly two years ago, during our pre-Covid, in-person chat, he told me that the greatest luxury in life was being on the ocean, surfng — which he discovered during a Hawaiian vacation with his kids roughly ten years ago. “I’m kind of lost without it; I start to disintegrate. It keeps me in the groove. It is very much my happy place. Whether I’m in Southern California, the southwest of France or in Hawaii, as long as there’s an ocean, a surfboard and a good meal afterward, that’s all the luxury I need.”

Sixteen months later, he’s singing a diferent tune. Life has changed, and so has his perspective. When I ask him the question again, his answer is, simply, “love.”

It is the love of his family — son Elijah, daughter Juno, ex-wife actress Carmen Ejogo and his 91-year-old aunt, who raised him alongside his mother, who passed away in 2019. Now, he says, “I think the greatest luxury is love. I mean, I think that’s what’s been revealed to me by these last months during the pandemic. Despite everything we may acquire, everything we may own, really, at the end of the day, love is the thing.”

So he may not be drinking Bollinger by the boatload or jumping from a plane like Bond does, but carving and catching swells at Pipeline is nothing to sneeze at, and nor, certainly, is love. Especially love. But really, anything that brings some quantum of solace these days? I say take it.