Cameron Monaghan is known in Gotham for his role as Jerome/Jeremiah, two twins brothers who are equally insane. Taking inspiration from the Joker without being officially titled as the infamous supervillain, Monaghan took the character and hit a home run.
“No, I didn’t know what to expect,” Monaghan admitted. “I didn’t know for sure if I was going to do more than that one interrogation scene in that first episode I was in. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to touch the character again, so to be able to have this much fun and to give multiple iterations of that character and then to play another version of this, it’s been insane. It’s been so cool.”
For Monaghan, playing two different versions of his character has given him endless opportunities to keep the villain fresh.
“I’ve enjoyed them both for different reasons,” Monaghan said. “It was cool with Jerome how it was so heightened and kind of cartoony and insane and I could go in any direction with it because he was just this weird ball of destructive energy. It’s nice with Jeremiah to find some glimpses of humanity within him and to bring him back and to make him colder and more chilling in his [methods]. I’m also doing something a little different with this season as we’re continuing to develop the character than where he was at last. He was very systematic and completely irrational last season. Now he’s starting to because he’s starting to lose his sanity and he’s slipping away without even realizing that he is. He has too much of an ego to realize that he’s slipping.”
Whether he is the Joker or not, Monaghan has gotten many praises for his interpretation of the villain.
You can catch more of Jeremiah Valeska when Gotham returns on January 3 on Fox at 8 PM ET.