‘Gotham’ Season 4 Spoilers: Ben McKenzie On Directing Episode 16

“Gotham” star Ben McKenzie gave his directing abilities another whirl this Season 4 as he helmed the 16th episode, “A Dark Knight: One of My Three Soups.”

The number 16 seems to be pretty lucky for McKenzie, since he was also the director for last season’s episode 16. He told the SF Gate that he’s grateful for the episodes’ scheduling because it gave him “the ability to prep before Christmas and shoot after Christmas.”

While his first attempt as a director was pretty conservative, McKenzie said he pulled out all the stops this time around. “First time around I was relatively conservative and tried to make sure I didn’t mess it up too badly,” he said. “This time there's a lot of action, big set pieces and a scene where three principles break out of an asylum, which required 200 background actors and a 200-foot crane.”

Like many actors who have been given the chance to direct, McKenzie found the change of pace a breath of fresh air. “I’ve done this for a while. As much as I love being in front of the camera, it can become a bit boring quite frankly,” he shared. “It’s doing a similar process over and over again. Often on many shows you're doing a similar beat emotionally so you just want to push yourself and try new things.”

Earlier, McKenzie admitted that he sometimes goes off-script as his character, Jim Gordon. He also offers his input as to how the character shapes up in the future.

This is what McKenzie said when he spoke during AOL’s Build Series held on March 26 in New York City, according to Just Jared. McKenzie added that he is thankful for the show’s success, and it’s all thanks to the writers’ amazing talents. “We have a show that people want to work on, and we get some really good people in there,” he said.

The show is currently in its fourth season, but after Disney took over Fox network, “Gotham” fans became worried that the show might not get renewed for a fifth season.

Thankfully, Fox’s chairman and CEO Gary Newman finally provided some positive news, according to Cinema Blend.

“We asked a lot of it this year moving to Thursday nights and I thought it did a pretty good job of opening up that night for us. I feel like ‘Gotham’ should have a place in our schedule. [It will be] purely be a matter of scheduling,” he said. “Thursday is not available in the fall, so where do we use it? Hopefully, there’s more years of ‘Gotham.’”

“Gotham” Season 4 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. EDT on Fox.