In its quest to use every Batman villain before Batman is old enough to drive, Gotham has finally worked its way to Ra's Al Ghul. The near-immortal leader of the League of Shadows will be appearing in the later half of Season 3 as the secret mastermind behind the Court of Owls, in which he'll have a little face-to-face time with Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz). Game of Thrones actor Alexander Siddig will portray this latest version, but don't expect it to be the same as Ra's other live-action appearances. As Siddig tell it, he'll be steering pretty hard into the ambiguous nature of Ra's.
I really tried to be as ambiguous as possible. I've only done two episodes and as an actor in episodic television, I don't know what the next script is, so I'm confronted with finding a way to play something really dark in a more ambiguous way.
It seems that when Alexander Siddig's take on Ra's Al Ghul finally appears on Gotham, he's going to be keeping his cards close to his chest. Siddig told Digital Spy that he made sure to play his character as "ambiguous as possible," playing into the mythic nature of The Demon's Head. Don't think just because Ra's Al Ghul is a villain that that's how things will play out on Gotham. Characters and viewers will have a hard time figuring out if Siddig's Ra's Al Ghul is "a demon or a saint, or a ghost," which should hopefully make for a memorable presence on FOX's comic book show.
That ambiguousness will make this take on Ra's Al Ghul stand apart from the rest. The two most notable live-action portrayals have been decidedly villainous. Liam Neeson first played the villain in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, where he trained Bruce Wayne and set out to destroy Gotham City with poisonous water (or something like that).
Then Arrow used Ra's Al Ghul in Season 3 as the Big Bad, this time played by Matt Nable. This version of Ra's wanted to make Oliver Queen his successor to the League of Shadows, but that didn't exactly go as planned. That version kept the comic book-y Lazarus Pit, which provides Ra's with immortality, but was skipped in Batman Begins. Gotham isn't exactly afraid to embrace the more "out there" comic concepts, so there's a good chance Alexander Siddig's version will be a lot older than he looks.
Alexander Siddig is set to appear later on in the season and has already filmed two episodes. Gotham returns to FOX with new episodes on April 24. To learn more about which shows are returning and to better plan your viewing schedule, check out our midseason premiere guide and summer premiere guide.
