8 years after he was first cast for Zack Snyder’s Justice League, JK Simmons has revealed the truth of a long running myth about his transformation for the DCEU movie. Simmons was cast as Commissioner Jim Gordon in March 2016 as Snyder looked to expand the then-burdgeoning DC shared universe after Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman’s releases. Gordon had been the missing piece, and Simmons’ work in Marvel’s Spider-Man movies set him up for an easy transition.
In 2017, an image of Simmons appeared on Instagram, supposedly showing his incredible physical transformation for the role, with inevitable reactions pointing to a newly hench Gordon in Justice League. In the end, Simmons’ version of Gordon was largely as he’d always been, sporting a trenchcoat and not flexing the shredded muscles Simmons had apparently teased. Now, Simmons has set the record straight, confirming there was never any intention of making the DCEU timeline version of Jim Gordon hench. In an interview with ComicBook, he revealed the true story:
“Here’s the thing about getting jacked for Justice League. I had done a movie called, I’m Not Here, coincidentally, written and directed by my wife. I played a character who was emaciated, think of The Machinist, and I had lost a ton of weight, and without being unhealthy I’d lost 35 pounds. So when I went back into the gym with my pal, Aaron Williamson, and just started pounding the protein and going crazy at good old Gold’s Gym in Laurel Canyon in the valley. He snapped a few pictures when I was really pumped up and at my strongest during that period, asked if I would be okay if he posted it on Instagram. I didn’t know what Instagram was, I didn’t know anything. This was a few years ago. And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever.”
And then three, four months later, all of a sudden, somebody’s whatever, it reposting it and I get texts from 30 friends in the same day, ‘What the hell? Whoa, man, that picture, blah, blah, blah.’ And the press got ahold of it and said, because I was about to do Zach Snyder’s Justice League, the assumption was, ‘Oh, well, he’s getting jacked so he can be in a DC comic.’ But if you think about it, Commissioner Gordon wears a trench coat the whole movie. So it really doesn’t matter what his biceps look like, it was just coincidental timing with me trying to reclaim my distant athletic youth and trying to stay fit and give my wife some eye candy.”
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JK Simmons’ Jim Gordon Was Wasted, But Not The Way You Thought
THe DCEU Almost Saw Two More Performances From The Perfectly Cast Part
In the aftermath of the viral gym photos of JK Simmons’ shredded physique, DC fans inevitably believed that Gordon was going to be completely different in Justice League. When no sign of that appeared in the finished movie, and Simmons followed the same trend as other actors who played Jim Gordon, there was also some disappointment that the Gotham PD Commissioner wasn’t a more all-action version. But really, that sort of transformation wouldn’t have fit, and it was far from the worst missed opportunity with the character.
Gordon is a tough but cerebral character and his contrast to Batman’s more extreme method of justice – dished out with his physicality – is an important part of their dynamic. Gordon is the acceptable face of justice, not a 1980s action hero cop punching criminals into submission. That image of Gordon isn’t really a great miss in Justice League, but the fact that JK Simmons’ entire performance as Gordon amounted to very little is way more notable.
Simmons was fairly sidelined in Justice League – understandably, given the focus on the world-ending threat of Steppenwolf and Darkseid – but the cancelation of both Ben Affleck’s Batman movie and the shelved Batgirl robbed fans of two more substantial looks at Gordon. For an actor of that level of ability, so well-suited to the role, be robbed of two chances to show off how great that casting was is a tragedy.
