DC High Volume: Batman
Interviews with Gordon Actor Jay Paulson & Composer Sam Ewing
Thu, 22 May 2025
In this companion episode of DC High Volume: Batman, host Coy Jandreau is joined by Jay Paulson, the voice of Jim Gordon, to discuss playing the hero cop of Gotham City, bringing the iconic character to life, and more. Next, Coy sits down with composer Sam Ewing to discuss crafting the music for the audio series, finding the themes for characters like Catwoman and The Joker, and his Eureka moments. © & ™ DC. Listen to DC HIGH VOLUME: BATMAN: https://lnk.to/DCHighVolume Learn more at: https://www.dc.com/highvolume Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is this episode about?
Hi, I'm Koi Jandro and welcome to DC High Volume Batman. In this monthly companion series, we sit down with the cast and crew and beyond for DC high-volume Batman.
Where we last left off in the story, we had the paralleling moments between Harvey Dent and our, at this point, Captain Gordon, as well as the moment where Poison Ivy completely and absolutely corrupts Bruce Wayne because no man can resist Poison Ivy.
Now, today on this show, I am honored to welcome Captain Gordon himself, Jay Paulson, as well as the composer for DC High Volume Batman, the one and only Sam Ewing. But first, I want to bring out a man who has taught me more about Jim Gordon than I ever knew. I didn't know. I'm learning all new things about characters I've loved my whole life. I want to bring out the one and only Jay Paulson.
We're sitting down with Jay Paulson. You know him from Mad Men, from Rust Creek, from Catch-22. He is our Jim, not yet Commissioner Gordon. How are you, man?
I'm doing great, Coy.
I'm so excited to talk about this character. I was telling you before, this is one of the roles that immediately leapt out to me. It is so iconic. It is so big and robust, but it's also a character that is our eyeline. He's the human element in this increasingly larger-than-life series of characters. I have to know for you, what was your personal entry point into this world and into this character?
Well, my personal entry point was reading the books as a youth. Amazing. And I was a huge fan of them and I loved them. Dark Knight was my Batman growing up in the book, you know, the graphic novels and the comics and stuff. That was my technical entry.
Now, as far as this project, it came about pretty much the way a lot of these sort of do standard, my people or what have you sort of send over the appointment. And I recorded it, you know, sent in a tape, and the positive response, we went and met on a Zoom and did more of that, and yeah.
It's really special because it is a character that people know from the comics and know from all the media that's adapted it, but I feel like year one is kind of
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Chapter 2: What insights does Jay Paulson have about Jim Gordon?
Literally, which is really special. It's what you always shoot for. And here we are doing it.
You got to do like the actor's method, like you got to process and then externalize twice. Essentially, yeah. Did you have a different voice as you developed the internal that you were surprised the external change? Like, was there an aha moment of like, I have found Jim through the process of finding Jim?
I'll say that the internal voice, the thoughtful voice was so thrown away. As we say, that was like, the note would be, throw it away, throw it away more, throw it away even more. And I'd say, gosh, if I keep throwing this away, what are we going to have? What are we going to have here? But sure enough, I thought it actually ended up getting us to a really subtle place.
That's really interesting because I imagine with like screen-based mediums, you've got a different, one, the lack of chronology, but you've also got a little less freedom of just consciousness because you know your face that you're pulling is going to be on camera.
Was there any thing you found in doing something in voiceover that you're going to bring to the next project because there was a different uniqueness to that freedom?
Absolutely. Well, the thing I was most concerned about with voice was too much, you know, as we got into putting too much on it because it's such a subtle medium. And when people are only approaching it with their ears, you know, every tiny little thing makes a difference. So that attention to detail blew me away.
Were there moments on relying, you're talking about the minutia and how, you know, you've got every little bit that we're hearing, but were there moments that influenced how you performed, Gordon, because you knew how small these little changes would be?
Like, is there anything that you did differently since you knew there wasn't a visual element to your performance that you might've done differently with just voice?
Sure. There were all sorts of sort of like we were interstitial sort of grunts and groans and moans and you could do a lot. You could get a lot with a little, you know, you really could. So that was definitely something to discover.
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Chapter 3: How did Jay Paulson prepare for his role as Gordon?
Well, for me, it brings it completely to life. That's the most exciting thing.
You know, like I, so I did, let's just say we start with the subway scene, you know, and, and I did, and I'd been doing the subway scene for the audition and I did the subway scene for the callback and I did the subway scene in the booths twice sometimes, or we did pickups on the subway scene and, and it's always been just me in the subway, you know, and then to hear it with,
people grumbling, people reading their newspaper, people bumping into one another. I mean, it really does just enrich it. It just really brings it to life. And it's so exciting. But I will say when I first listened to it, I thought, that sounds like me. That's funny. I thought it would sound like, I don't know who I thought it would sound like.
You had an out of body experience later where you're like, wait, no, no, that was.
That's me.
I'm on this thing.
oh, Jay Paulson's here. What a concept. So I love that for me, it is like being on a set. You've got this visual experience, or maybe you're using a green screen, or maybe you've got a blue screen. You've still got some visual cues, but for you, you're in a booth. You've got nothing except for the imagination. And to me, that's the experience of listening to it. I'm having mind's eye visuals of
Sometimes the artist, but sometimes my own imagination. Are there things that you visualize differently when you're in the booth than when you listen? Do you have any like sense memory from like, oh, right, that happened.
There were times in the booth when we pretended to smoke.
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