Best of 2014 results: ‘Gotham’s’ Robin Lord Taylor wins Breakout Star over Pedro Pascal, others

There is little doubt that 2014 showed itself to be a very good year for comic-book adaptations, and it doesn’t matter if you are looking at movies or television.

Since we are a TV site, of course we are focusing on the latter! “The Walking Dead” was already a smash hit, but this year brought us “The Flash,” “Constantine,” even more success for “Arrow,” and introduced us to a new twist on the classic comic adaptation in “Gotham.” This is where we come to sharing the news that series regular Robin Lord Taylor, otherwise known as Oswald Cobblepot a.k.a. the Penguin on the show, is the winner of Breakout Star in the CarterMatt Best of 2014 Awards!

First of all, let’s turn to sharing the stats. Taylor won by one of the most commanding leads of any category so far, scoring more than 40% of the vote. It was not more than the other nominees combined, but it was close. The next in line was Pedro Pascal, the beloved Red Viper from “Game of Thrones,” with more than 20%. Everyone pulled in a respectable showing, but obviously, there is something about Taylor that appealed to the readers of the site.

We feel that the reasons for the win here are threefold.

1. Taylor’s fans waged a pretty strong campaign; we saw posts all across social media getting the word out and encouraging others to vote.

2. We have a pretty strong base of “Gotham” fans at CarterMatt in the first place.

3. His performance on the show is captivating. This was a role that would be tricky for almost anyone to take on. It is so iconic due to Danny DeVito in “Batman Returns,” and the challenge here is to make it original, and not just another twist on his rendition. Taylor was fantastic in his own right, conniving, and yet still enough of an underdog that you want to keep watching him, even if he is doing many terrible things.