Cory Michael Smith Talks His Transformation Into the Riddler
Cory Michael Smith has been in Gotham since the beginning as Edward Nygma, initially a harmless, if strange, lab geek for the GCPD. But it's now changing quite rapidly as the character embraces the madness inside of him.
But the actor says that the character has no blame to throw at anyone for the change he's experienced. "Fate," Smith said. "He accidentally killed two people, when he had good intentions. So I just kind of like this idea that Ed very physically manifested this part of himself that he thought was outside of himself, this ability to do these horrible things.
"He thought he was innocent of all those feelings because he’d denied them for so long," Smith said. "Then learning to embrace them, that they are part of him, and I think his – the way that he normalizes things or psychoanalyzes things is different than most people.
"So seeing this reality given to him by fate, he thinks that all these bad feelings mean that he’s a bad person; it’s part of his capacity to do this, so he’s going to because fate has decided this is his life. That’s versus other people who might be like, ‘Oh, I made a mistake. I get angry sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I’m a bad person.’ He’s so consumed by this."
Where the character starts the season, Arkham is this uneventful place, "which is dulling to his brain. I have to get the hell out of there." Given how infamous Arkham is, Nygma won't be stuck in there for long.
Source: Comicbook
