David Zayas To Play Notorious Gotham Crime Boss Salvatore Maroni

The future Commissioner James Gordon is sure to have his hands full when Fox’s Gotham premieres this fall.  Deadline reports that Dexter star David Zayas has been added to the roster as notorious crime boss Salvatore “The Boss” Maroni.  That’s going to be a lot of stress for the young Gordon.  No wonder his hair eventually turns stark white.

For David Zayas, playing a crime boss will be ironically different from his first job — that of a real life NYPD police officer.  Because of his police training, his early roles were that of law enforcement officers.  Later, due to his experience and insight into criminals from his policing days, Zayas expanded his repertoire to convincingly play characters that were on the other side of the law.  Starting his career in 1995 on Law & Order, Zayas’s biggest role to-date has been the character of Detective Batista on Showtime’s Dexter for all eight seasons of its run.  Zayas has also had many guest stints on popular shows such as New York Undercover, Burn Notice, Person of Interest, NYPD Blue and The Following.  His film credits include Michael Clayton (2007), The Expendables (2010) and Annie (2014).

The character of Salvatore “The Boss” Maroni made his first appearance in Detective Comics #66.  On trial for the murder of a man named “Bookie” Benson, the mobster faces off with a clean-cut, hard-on-crime prosecutor — Harvey Dent.  Enraged that Harvey has full proof of his involvement in the homicide, Maroni throws a vial of acid into the ill-fated prosecutors face, thereby disfiguring half of Harvey’s face and transforming him into one of Batman’s greatest foes, Two-Face.  Later, Two-Face finds his revenge and shoots and kills Maroni.  In the comics, there have been multiple interpretations of Maroni throughout the years.  But they’ve all pretty much adhered to his characterization of being a powerful crime boss.  It was only in the Bronze Age of Comic Books that he had his name briefly changed to “Morelli.”

This will not be the first live incarnation of Salvatore Maroni.  In 1989’s Batman, Maroni was portrayed by an uncredited actor and appeared as one of nine crime bosses at a meeting held by Carl Grissom (Jack Palance).  In 1995’s Batman Forever, Moroni was referred to as “Boss Maroni,” and was portrayed by Dennis Paladino.  His appearance was in a brief flashback showing the famous throwing of acid into Harvey Dent’s (Tommy Lee Jones) face.  In 2008’s The Dark Knight, Maroni was portrayed by Eric Roberts as a low-level boss taking over Carmine Falcone’s crime family after the events of 2005’s Batman Begins.  Here, Maroni had no involvement in the creation of Two-Face.  It was the Joker’s booby-trapped warehouse explosion aftermath that caused Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to burn off and disfigure half of his face.

In the animation realm, Maroni, voiced by Rob Paulsen, appeared in two segments of 2008’s direct-to-DVD anthology series of shorts Batman: Gotham Knight.  The anthology was within the same universe as The Dark Knight Trilogy and set between the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

Fox will premiere Gotham on Monday, September 22, 2014 at 8:00PM EST.