Brendan Fraser Shares Story Details on His BATGIRL Character Firefly and Talks About Gotham City
It’s a shame what Warner Bros. ended up doing with Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah’s Batgirl movie. I would have liked to see it, but at this point, that’s going to happen. All we have from it is what the cast and crew have revealed while talking about it and today we have some actual story details to share regarding the villain of the film, Firefly.
These details come from actor Brendan Fraser, who plays Firefly in the movie, and when he appeared on The Howard Stern Show, he was asked about the movie. Before he talked about his character, though, he shared his thoughts on the version of Gotham City that we would have seen in the movie saying:
"Yeah, it was great. Adil [El Arbi] and Bilall [Fallah], who did the Bad Boys movie, are really good at blowing s**t up and they love doing it. You know, like practical fire effects making stuff go bang, they're all over it, and so firefly is right in their wheelhouse. Gotham never looked better cast as Glasgow, Scotland. You know it's decaying and just gorgeous. It looks like it's Gotham City. It's perfectly cast. You believe it no matter where you look at the town, if you light it the right way.”
He then went on to talk about Firefly’s story in the movie and the kind of villain that he is:
“It was a story about a guy who had been in the service and his benefits were cut and he was very angry with the system and what else is he gonna do but burn it to the ground. That's all you need to know. That's a supervillain right there. You've got some sympathy for him. You've also got some humanity to him and on top of that a screw loose cause you know he's the bad guy, but is he really like all the best bad guys, you kinda like them a little bit. That was this role. On paper very very good. I relished this part."
It sounds like Fraser would have been playing a great and complex villain. I hate that we’re never going to see his version of this villain! I bet he delivered an awesome performance. When previously talking about the movie, Leslie Grace offered some cool insight on the practical fire effects and fighting Fraser saying:
"I truly had one of [the best] experiences with Batgirl. In terms of the experience of shooting, we were all so excited for people to see a lot of the action, a lot of the practical shots we did with fire. Our movie was full of practical fire, which was really hard to shoot. Brendan [Fraser], our villain, our Firefly, he was just so outstanding. I felt so blessed to have him as my sparring partner. We had so many amazing action scenes together where we were beating each other up, but hugging in between takes because he’s just so sweet."
I’m sure one day some of this film’s footage will leak out and see the light of day, but we’ll still never get to see the polish finished product.