Three-time Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston flips to the other side of the law as the voice of Lieutenant James Gordon in the animated retelling of Frank Miller’s landmark comic in “Batman: Year One,” the next entry in the series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies.

Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated feature was released today on DVD, Blu-ray and digital formats.

Cranston earned Emmy Award nominations in three of his seven years as the lovable, goofy father on “Malcolm in the Middle.” It took a shift toward the dark side as chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer Walter White in AMC’s “Breaking Bad” to start a record-tying run as only the second actor in history to score three consecutive Emmy wins.

As Gordon, Cranston gets to find a middle ground between his two best known roles – providing a moral center for the gritty tale of two men striving to bring their own idea of justice to an unjust world.

Cranston is joined in the stellar voice cast by Ben McKenzie (“Southland”) as Batman, Eliza Dushku (“Dollhouse,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and Katee Sackhoff (“Battlestar Galactica”) as Detective Sarah Essen. Alex Rocco (“The Godfather”) is the voice of crime lord Carmine Falcone.

Following his initial recording session for “Batman: Year One,” Cranston had the chance to discuss his thoughts on initially turning down the role of Jim Gordon, his love of the inner monologue, the inward journey afforded by comic books, his chances of one-day playing a certain Edwrd Nigma opposite a live-action Dark Knight, and much more.

QUESTION: You were Warner Bros. first choice for the role of Jim Gordon, but the feeling wasn’t mutual – you initially declined. What made you change your mind?

BRYAN CRANSTON: I always talk about the writing – I’ve gotten to a point in my career where I don’t want to just take a job, I want to be part of great storytelling. I always say that I don’t care if it’s a children’s play, I’ll do it so long as it’s great writing. I’ve done some animation work and, quite frankly, I haven’t loved all of it. So when they first offered this to me, I turned it down. I didn’t want to do something that I just assumed was goofy or cartoony.

Fortunately, my representatives convinced me that I needed to give this material a fair shake – and I’m so glad they did. I had no idea that animation could have such depth and sophistication. This is adult storytelling, handled in intrinsically adult ways. It’s interesting and thoughtful and dark and nothing that I thought I’d find in an animated script.

Jim Gordon is trying to find his moral center. He keeps getting shot down. He doesn’t want to work in this hellhole of a city, hated by his fellow cops, hated by his superiors. His wife is pregnant and he’s conflicted about bringing a child into this troubled world. He’s on an island. I was really surprised – in a good way. This script was well-written, unpredictable, good storytelling. And so I happily ate my hat because I’m so glad they forced me to read it.

QUESTION: The name in the film’s title is Batman, but this is just as much Jim Gordon’s story, isn’t it?

BC: What I was first attracted to in reading Batman: Year One was that James Gordon actually is the star. That’s the way I look at it, anyway. That was really unexpected, especially the way he’s portrayed. My first experience with Batman was through the comics, but the Batman television series really had an impact. So I thought, “Oh, Gordon’s an old Irishman with that big, thick over-the-top brogue.” But there was no comic book silliness – there were twists and turns, darkness and light, and truly human mistakes that I’d never anticipated. And it’s as much Jim Gordon’s story as it is a story about Batman’s origins.

QUESTION: So is this your chance to finally put that education in police work to use?

BC: (laughs) In thinking about James Gordon, basically I used my own background. I went to college to become a police officer. There’s a certain similar decorum that all police officers have – it’s a skepticism and a curiosity and a bit of cynicism, too. And what I found in reading the script was that all those elements seem to be in place for the character. So all I wanted to do is to bring out that sensibility and make him real. He has to be a real guy, someone you believe could be this police officer, in order for you to accept the plight and the dismay that he’s going through, and trying to do the right thing in a city that is surrounded by corruption.

QUESTION: So all that time on Malcolm In The Middle, playing that great dad, you really were just waiting for some truly dark roles to present themselves?

BC: Malcolm In The Middle was a great seven years. We had a great time. And I think what made that story work is that at the core you had a real family that was striving to do the right thing. And when you look at what Gordon is to Batman: Year One, he is a guy who’s still striving to do the right thing. Anytime you have that, an audience will even allow you to do the wrong thing if they know that you’re trying to do the right thing. So they’ve got you. It’s like they know that, at the core, you’re a good person, and that’s what he is. So when an issue comes up that forces him to walk a fine line between what is right and what is wrong, and certain things pull him in one direction or the other, the audience empathizes with his struggle. That makes it interesting.

QUESTION: What makes Batman an interesting character to you?

BC: As a character, Batman is someone who has a righteousness about him. And yet, it’s not pure. He is a vigilante. He’s taking matters into his own hands. So you could say that he’s doing good things, but I don’t know that you could say he’s a good guy because of the manner that he approaches his actions. That’s what always makes characters more interesting, that they walk the line of good and bad.

QUESTION: Was there any element of the script that you particularly enjoyed?

BC: I didn’t have any particular favorite lines or scenes, but what I really appreciated about doing Lieutenant Gordon was the inner monologue. I don’t remember having (a role) that had that kind of sensibility that allows the character to be honest and open, vulnerable, and let the audience then determine if they’re welcome into this man’s soul or not. So that was probably my favorite part – to be able to have that running inner monologue going on, which I find fascinating.

QUESTION: What’s your take on comic books?

BC: To a kid growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, comic books were pretty much one of the only written material that was a diversion for kids. There were three television stations, and movies were few and far between as far as access to them. So you’d get together with your friends and you’d open up comic books when you got tired of playing football in the street, or baseball or whatever. And then you’d allow your imagination to go and to wonder. And the great thing about comic books is that it allows the reader to be his or her own art director. You can see a glimpse of Gotham behind in the tall buildings and you start to imagine the heights of the building, Batman looking down. And when he swoops down, you put that all into your head and fill in the blanks. Sometimes in the comic books, it appeared to me like it was like an impressionistic painting. Where (you thought), “What’s that in background? I can’t quite make out what that is, but it feels real.” So you fill in the blanks, and that makes it more interesting and like you’re a part of the storytelling itself.

QUESTION: Must you take a different acting approach when playing a real-life individual or a fictional icon – as opposed to a character specifically written for the page?

BC: Yes. You approach each character with a little different idea of how and what you need to shape him. I played Buzz Aldrin in From The Earth To The Moon about the Apollo project for HBO, and that I did approach differently. This is a real person, an American hero, a worldwide hero, and he’s still alive. And there’s something in the back of your head that says, “I really want him to be proud of this. I want him, above all else, to be able to say that I gave an honest depiction of the sensibility of what was going on then and who I was at that time.” I think that’s, in a sense, the same when working with an iconic figure like Jim Gordon in Batman: Year One. Everybody has a pretty good idea of Gordon – who he is and how he sounds – so you can’t go too far against that grain. You need to be in the ballpark. He’s an established character, but the script will give you a good idea of how far you can stretch here or there.

QUESTION: There are a few fan sites spreading a rumor that you’re going be the The Riddler at one point or another in a live-action Batman film. Any truth in these rumors?

BC: I would love to be able to jump into a character like that – whole hog – and play The Riddler. That would be fun. Although I haven’t been lobbying for that, and there’s a certain part of me that is really fatalistic about (rumors like) that. It’s like, if it’s supposed to happen, then it’s supposed to happen. But I can only say that I’d be interested in playing something like that and see how it turns out.

Eliza Dushku has become Catwoman.

The star of “Dollhouse” and “Tru Calling,” and of course “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Dushku provided the voice of Selina Kyle/Catwoman for “Batman: Year One,” the next entry in the ongoing series of DC Universe animated original movies. A few short months later, Dushku was quick to accept a return to the role as the title character of the DC Showcase animated short Catwoman.

We interviewed Dushku in 2009 when she was voicing the main character in the video game Wet. Following her initial recording session, Dushku was happy to download some of her thoughts regarding a number of subjects related to Catwoman, the Batman legacy, felines, bad girls and comic books. And here’s what she had to say …

QUESTION: You seemed to easily groove into this character. Where did you go to discover who Selina Kyle is?

ELIZA DUSHKU: I found the attitude for this character deep down in the Eliza Dushku archive of bad girls (she laughs). They’re in there somehow, somewhere for some reason, and I tap into them when I need them. They’re characters with an edge. I grew up with three older brothers in Boston, and my mother was a single mom. So I spent my early years running the streets with the boys. After I fell into the film and television business, I went back to public school in Boston, and kids didn’t think it was that cool. So I had to kind of fight for my street cred. I adopted this really sort-of-hard exterior, and got in a couple fights. So by the time I graduated high school and came out to make Buffy The Vampire Slayer, it was really art imitating life. I was fighting for my life.

QUESTION: Does being part of the Batman mythology have any special significance to you?

ED: It’s incredible being part of the Batman legacy. It’s iconic. It’s Batman. I grew up with brothers and we would play Batman and Robin. Well, I would always try to get in and play, but usually they would let me join the game as some character or another, and they would immediately kill me off (laughs). So, I used to watch from afar. So now look brothers – I get to be a part of this and you don’t. (laughs hard)

QUESTION: Do you have a pet cat? How do you feel about cats?

ED: I had hobo cats growing up. We had cats that would climb up on the roof of the house. We would get them off the roof, then two nights later they would be meowing on the top of the roof again. They have little attitudes, too. I ended up with dogs, mainly, but if a cat could act like a dog and could play like a dog and can play rough, then those cats got along with me. I just don’t want house cats or Siamese cats – they’re a little too snooty for me.

QUESTION: Did you enjoy attempting to bring a comic book to animated life?

ED: I love that in the DC Comics world, the stakes are high from the get-go. A week ago, I was watching The Dark Knight. I love what they did, but it’s different from what we did for Batman: Year One and Catwoman. When you’re recreating comics, there’s different intonations and character strengths that come out. That’s what I was focused on bringing forth. It’s a little exaggerated, a little nuanced, a little more dramatic. But it’s also full of layers and seething with this very cool energy.

QUESTION: Do you enjoy voice acting?

ED: I’ve had a great time doing voiceovers. It started with videogames – the first was a Buffy The Vampire Slayer videogame – and really I did it because I thought it would be cool to have my nephews be able to play me on their videogames. They won’t talk to me right now – they’re at that stage of being a teenager – so I thought maybe we could have a connection through the videogames. I did a videogame called Wet last year that was a lot of fun. Then I have some friends over at Family Guy. And then, more and more, I’ve been sort of reaching out and peeking around to see what things are available to build my voiceover resume. It’s fun for me, and completely different from what we do in live action. Voice acting is really invigorating. It still feels like you have to bring the same amount of character and energy into the room. And then to watch it morph into the animated version is really kind of magnificent.

QUESTION: Was there anything you wanted to personally add to the character that made the experience of voicing Catwoman that much more fun?

ED: Well, I wanted to purr, and they let me purr – so that was really like getting a bit of extra credit. I wanted to get in there and really emphasize her relationship with her cats, as I think it’s very feral and very significant. And everyone was really cool about letting me play around with my ferocity.

QUESTION: What is it you enjoy most about working in this genre?

ED: I love my fanboys. Without my fanboys, so many of the projects that I’ve done wouldn’t have had the extraordinary life that they’ve enjoyed. The fanboys have been there with enthusiasm and the support, and their loyalty and their love has made this so rewarding and exciting. It makes me just want to give them more, more, more, more.

QUESTION: The Whedonverse has provided many actors for the first 16 DC Universe Animated Original Movies. What do you think makes Joss Whedon’s casts fit so nicely in the DC Universe?

ED: Joss is such a die-hard comic book fan himself that there’s a natural connection. And when you play in his worlds – worlds that are fantasy-related with all this metaphorical, deep magic going on, it sort of preps you to think the unthinkable and go places with your character that most projects don’t give you the opportunity to do.

QUESTION: Your parents are educators. Did comic books fit into place as literature in your house?

ED: My father was actually a fourth grade elementary school teacher, so we had a lot of fun with dad growing up as far as comic books and trading baseball cards. That was actually one of the things that my brothers and my father and I did together – play with action figures and Star Wars and G.I. Joes and Transformers, and trade and read comic books and baseball cards. My dad actually worked at and had a baseball card shop for a while, and he had comics in there. So comic books were definitely a huge part of my childhood.

Produced by Warner Premiere, DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation, the all-new, PG-13 rated Batman: Year One arrives October 18 from Warner Home Video as a Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD, On Demand and for Download. Batman: Year One is also now available in a special download-for-purchase early window through iTunes, Xbox Live, Zune, VUDU HD Movies and Video Unlimited on the PlayStation Network & Sony Entertainment Network.

Warner Home Video will present the world premiere of “Catwoman,” the latest addition to the DC Showcase Animated Shorts series, as part of its DC Universe Animated panel on Friday 3-4 p.m. in the IGN Theater at New York Comic Con.

Catwoman is included in the October 18 Blu-ray/DVD release of “Batman: Year One,” the next entry in the ongoing series of DC Universe Animated Original Movies.

The panel includes animation legend Bruce Timm, nine-time Emmy Award-winning dialogue director Andrea Romano, and the fan favorite voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy. The panelists will discuss the Catwoman short, the upcoming release of Batman: Year One, and next spring’s release of Justice League: Doom.

The world premiere of the Justice League: Doom trailer is another New York Comic Con exclusive to be unveiled during the panel.

Catwoman/Selina Kyle is voiced by Eliza Dushku, well known for her television roles in Buffy the “Vampire Slayer,” “Tru Calling” and “Dollhouse.” The 15-minute short is penned by respected comics/animation writer Paul Dini.

The short finds Catwoman posing as an “entertainer” in a strip club to get close to black market diamond smuggler Rough Cut — who doesn’t take kindly to Catwoman’s interference in his business, leading to an all-out battle through the streets of Gotham City.

“When Alan Burnett and I first started discussing the idea of a Catwoman short, we both agreed that we wanted to make the story and the settings as adult as we could,” Dini explains. “The world of burlesque has returned in a big way to the contemporary consciousness, and that proved to be a very natural setting for this Catwoman story. At the time I wrote the initial screenplay, I didn’t know the short would be paired up with Batman: Year One, but the steamy setting that Selina inhabits in that book also proved to be ideal for the short.”

For the short, Dini created the character Rough Cut, a villain whose smuggling interests beyond diamonds catches Catwoman’s attention.

“I liked the idea of a villain who was obsessed with diamonds, but as this story takes place in the down and dirty side of Gotham, I felt the bad guy couldn’t be too glamorous,” Dini said. “I came up with the name Rough Cut both to describe the man and the kinds of crude, unfinished diamonds he pedals. There’s always a market for industrial diamonds, but lately Rough Cut has been feeling the economic pinch, so he’s smuggling more precious cargo. That’s what brings Catwoman into the picture.”

Dushku was very happy to return to her Batman: Year One role, having already taken equity in the part of Catwoman/Selina Kyle. Dushku has definitely found a clear understanding of her character’s emotional make-up.

“A lot of people are familiar with the characters I’ve played – these strong and vicious women who are, very deep down inside, really wounded women with an entirely unexpected side, so there’s nothing black and white about them,” Dushku said. “I think people identify with the characters I play because even though they do terrible things, there’s a humanity there. They’ve got lots of layers. They’re not just good or evil. Selina is a prostitute, and she’s abrasive and in your face, but she also has this maternal, protective, loyal quality to her. Her relationship with Holly is a perfect example – it shows a side you might not expect.”

“Firefly” fans know the pain of the FOX red pen. It’s official. “Dollhouse” has been canceled.

The innovative Joss Whedon drama’s second season was a disaster from the start with a Friday night time slot it had to share with “Stargate Universe” and the fans’ social calendars. DVR couldn’t save it, either.

A few weeks ago, FOX announced it would pull “Dollhouse” during the November sweeps period due to low ratings, and yesterday the rest of the ax came down. FOX will air all 13 episodes of the second season starting on December 4, however.

Are you a die-hard Dollhouse fan? What do you think of this? Share your thoughts below.

We liked Wet at E3. We liked it a lot. We recognized it as a gutsy project back then, and that’s just what it was. The unfortunate thing about gutsy projects is that they sometimes don’t turn out as you like. The Wet we played at E3 — and the demo, released last month — felt like an arcade game. The action started immediately. You shot and stabbed people, and then you shot and stabbed more people. A little story was mixed in, but the emphasis was the shooting and the slicing. By and large, this is how Wet does start out. However, when you’re actually playing through a poorly designed level with non-intuitive navigation, it’s harder to appreciate that action.

Beyond the navigational issues, the first “level,” of Wet is fun, and it really brings you into the game, leaving you wanting more–then it all stops. Instead of continuing the action, getting bloodied up, and listening to Eliza Dushku, the voice of Rubi,‚  tell some Asian cowboy to suck his own [this is a coarse and vulgar game, mom] we’re thrust head first into … an hour-long tutorial, in Rubi’s “boneyard hideaway,” made up of “challenges” like an obstacle course. There are some serious ADHD issues going on here. The game spends the first 10 minutes teaching you how to perform Rubi Malone’s acrobatic moves. Then you get 15-20 solid minutes of action. Then an hour of boredom. Then the game starts up again, and it really seems to get good again when Rubi makes a cargo plane blow up midair and is falling to the ground. But you’ll spend another hour, or about 50 of your unlimited “lives” trying to navigate through a maze of plane parts, boxes, and miscellany, because if anything hits you, you die. Considering this is kind of a short game with a sliver of story as is, that seems like time wasted.

The game is about a gun-for-hire who agrees to find a wealthy man’s son, but when he finds the son and brings him back, he kills the son and sends a sword-swinging goon to kill you.

The game has diversity. The acrobatic moves are edgy, and there’s a good mix of swordplay and shooting. There’s a great mix of gameplay styles — walking/fighting, jumping, acrobatics, vehicles and even the aforementioned free fall from the sky. The pace picks up with “rage mode” where everything goes red and Rubi starts killing everything in sight. The problem with “rage mode,” however, is that it’s much harder to navigate through the already puzzling levels with the screen all red. And you don’t get any additional health. You die just the same as you would normally. The “rage mode” we played at E3 put Rubi in a more enclosed space where she just went nuts and started swinging the sword, killing dozens of baddies like they were nothing. It felt more like a bonus level at E3, but it’s actually a much more difficult gameplay style in the actual game.

The cinematic elements are good. The game’s post-modern feel is matched perfectly with cutscenes featuring 50s drive-in “let’s go to the refreshment stand” montages.

But essence isn’t the problem. Neither are the graphics or the voice acting, also featuring actors Malcolm McDowell and Alan Cumming. It’s straight gameplay that hurts Wet, nothing more.

The game should be more intuitive. The acrobatic moves are fun, and it’s awesome to slide down a ladder shooting baddies in slow motion. It’s even more awesome to jump from moving car to moving car on a freeway while shooting baddies in slow motion. It’s wicked awesome to slide under a pipe and catch a baddie with an uppercut of your sword. But the acrobatic nature of the game means you’re going to fall a lot, but rather than die and wait for the load screen to start the checkpoint over, the developer should shoot you right back to where you fell from and let you keep playing. Nothing kills momentum and fun like bad platforming, and Wet has its share of that.

The game gets lost in bursts of fun, followed by waiting, followed by more bursts.

The Blast Factor: The frustrations don’t always outpace the fun. Wet is a good game that’s fun to play in moderation, but the sum of the its parts just isn’t enough to make you want to keep playing for long.

WET is available on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 for a retail price of $59.99

SAN DIEGO — You all should know by now, we at Blast are huge fan of “Buffy” and “Dollhouse” mastermind Joss Whedon’s work. Be it by spiting the writer’s strike with “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog” or constantly giving us reasons to ogle Eliza Dushku and Nathan Fillion, Whedon is someone you should be aware of if you are not. Don’t believe me? Check out his marketing campaign for his new horror film, “The Cabin in the Woods”:

Not since HBO’s first “True Blood” campaign has a poster not only made you laugh but made you want to know just what the hell the campaign is representing. Whedon is master of cult hits, and “The Cabin in the Woods” looks to be the next one in a very long list. If anything, those posters will make you laugh.

LOS ANGELES — Blast got to chat with the one and only Eliza Dushku, star of the new Bethesda Softworks action title Wet. Dushku plays Rubi Malone, a hard-drinking, acrobatic hit woman.

Let’s get this out of the way right now: Eliza Dushku is so cool. She gives a firm handshake. She talks to everyone around her, even the burly security guard. And she gets really into watching people play her game.

Anyways, on with the beans we got her to spill.

BLAST: Is this your first video game?

ELIZA DUSHKU: No. I was in Buffy and and then the Yakuza game.

BLAST: What do you think of Wet so far?

ED: I’m into it, and I have a friend that came down to test out the game. He’s 14. His name is Kyle. He says it’s really good and I trust him.

BLAST: Is there a big difference between doing a video game voiceover and a movie voiceover and then just plain acting?

ED: Um. It depends. It’s just a whole different “" it’s you, but it’s not. It’s kind of like for this video game I didn’t do all the body muscle stuff. I knew she already sort of had a rhythm, and I felt in a way more like I was getting into her established character and trying to find the right fit, you know what I mean, to give her.

I actually decided that I should smoke a few cigarettes each time we did it. My friend was like “your voice is so low” and I was like “yeah that’s the cigarettes.” I quit smoking, but I was like “eh, it’s for work.”

BLAST: Have you had a chance to play through Wet and see yourself in action?

ED: Just a little bit. It’s awesome and I love, you know, that Tarantino, “Kill Bill” look to it “" the whole 70s, grainy, the music. I think it’s really sexy. It’s sexy and it’s exciting and she’s a real working class Lara Croft, Jack Daniels-confident, tough, hard as nails, she’s international. She’s in Hong Hong and the UK, and she’s going wherever she needs to go to take care of business.

BLAST: Actors oftentimes say they put a lot of themselves into their roles. Are you able to do that in a video game role?

ED: Yeah. Every time, you know, she’s crazy I got to get crazy and hit record. It was a great anger release.

BLAST: Do you see yourself doing more video game roles now that you’ve got this one done?

ED: I was sort of holding off after the first two and then this one came to me. I like the idea of seeing this one sort of go farther and go deeper. I definitely feel a real identification with [the character].

BLAST: Did you play video games growing up?

ED: Not as much as I wanted to, because I was a little sister. I liked Metroid, and I liked Mortal Kombat, and I liked the Mario Bros.

BLAST: I want to talk about Dollhouse a bit. What was the most challenging thing about season one?

ED: Well if you asked me like three weeks ago I’d say the Friday night time slot. Because, you know, it’s Friday night, the people weren’t necessarily showing up and seeing it on their TVs on a Friday night, but then when they woke up we were the most DVR’d show in history or something.

I started realizing how many people were watching. Now it’s just kind of gravy that we get to go back and do anther season. We don’t have to worry sort of about what the numbers coming in on Friday are. We’re reaching our audience, you know?

BLAST: Does your producer role change your relationship with Joss Whedon at all?

ED: Yes. We’re so serious. We’re so business oriented there’s no fun and games anymore. (laughs) Not even. I think I’m going to go back and bring them all pizza. He just texted me last night and said “we’re officially en fuego.”

BLAST: What’s been your favorite imprint so far?

ED: I had a lot of fun playing the assassin. I fought FBI agent Ballard in, what was it, (episode) six, “Man on the Steet.” That’s also the episode where the show really picked up and found its voice. That was like a high episode.

It’s also cool in the end, “Omega” where I played like 38 personalities at once.

BLAST: Do you ever feel that the show is too risque?

ED: No. I have three older brothers, and they saw the whole dominatrix opener one day and were like “really sis? Really?” but, you know, it’s part of the “we give the people what they want” on the show, and they want that.

BLAST: What are you looking forward to in season two?

ED: I feel like we really found a groove toward the end of the season and we just have so many stories that we want to tell and so many places we want to go and now we just get that chance and now we just get to make the show we want to make.

BLAST: Is there someplace new you want to go with the show in season two?

ED: There’s a little bit less of the dumbed-down doll and a little more of this young woman now being able to figure out what she’s going to do.

BLAST: So you’re filming in Boston soon. Boston’s trying to become this like Hollywood East. Do you like filming at home with us becoming more of a hub of the entertainment industry?

ED: I love it. Boston’s my favorite place on earth.

Eliza said she’s filming a psychological drama in Boston with Ben Barnes based on what she called “a really beautiful script.”

She is also dating somebody. No, she didn’t say who, but the Boston Herald announced today it is ex-Celtic Rick Fox, and we’re pretty sure we caught a glimpse of him playing Wet before the interview.

She currently owns a Nintendo Wii and is addicted to BrickBreaker on her Blackberry.

Blast Magazine staff writer Kellen Rice contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — If you’re anything like me, you marked the date for Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse premiere the moment it was announced. And lucky for both of us, that day has finally come: tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern on Fox, the creator of Buffy, Angel, Captain Malcolm Reynolds, and most recently Dr. Horrible has a new character to add to his acclaimed repertoire: a mysterious girl named “Echo.”

Eliza Dushku (a “Buffy” alum) stars as Echo, a mind-wiped “Active” who resides in the elusive “Dollhouse.” As an Active, she receives a new personality for every “engagement” for which she is contracted and after her mission is complete, her mind is wiped clean. She is a living Doll who can become anything imaginable — and yet she has no true self of her own.

But that might change as the 13-episode first season of Dollhouse unfolds.

Blast got the chance to participate in an interview with creator Joss Whedon at the New York Comic Con, during which he answered some of the most pressing questions about his new show.

To the casual onlooker, it’s hard to reconcile Whedon’s iconic Buffy with Echo, a beautiful woman who is hired out to the highest bidder for anything and everything — including sex. This seeming departure from Whedon’s hard-line stance on feminism was one of the first questions he addressed in the interview.

When asked, “Did you get a show about prostitution on a major network?”, Whedon responded: “First of all, it’s not just women. It’s women and men. And secondly — yes.”

After the laughter died down, he continued.

“There was, in the higher ranks (of Fox), some consternation after the show as being made,” Whedon began, and then caricatured the “higher ranks” in a mocking voice: “‘say, this seems like prostitution.’ And my response was yes, that’s part of the package.”

Whedon paused before going on. “That is part of what is going on. And it’s not all of what is going on, but it’s part of it. and some people have been greatly offended by that, and some people want to stay away from that. And my response to it is to hit it head on. Let’s talk about exactly that, and say: okay, well how much of this is morally reprehensible and how much of it is just stuff that we as an American culture deem morally reprehensible? It’s about what parts of our identity and the way we behave with each other are actually positive, and decent. What parts actually come from ourselves and what parts have been socialized. What parts are we being told are good, or bad. And that’s a theme you’ll find in “Serenity,” you’ll find in a lot of my work. What truly is a sin?

“My villain — and I mean people will refer to Olivia Williams (as) the villain, she runs the Dollhouse. But she is, in her own way, a very moral person. She has a code. And yes, what’s we’re dealing with — the reality of prostitution — is beyond appalling. But Eliza said, I want to deal with sexuality on my show. I want to be part of what we talk about. So yeah, it’s in there.”

Another concern with the show is the degree to which a main character whose personality changes every week can form any meaningful attachment with either the audience or another character on the show. To that, Whedon didn’t elaborate much beyond saying, “Yes, yes — she will form attachments to other dolls.” He also indicated that Echo’s attachments would lead to some conflict during the series, an idea to which the trailer alludes.

But what about Whedon’s signature humor and wit? “Dollhouse” is not a show that seems as conducive to comedy as, say, “Buffy.” But Joss says not to worry.

“There is actually a great deal of humor in this show. Not up front, because we wanted the premise to be more realistic. We didn’t have license to be as silly up front. Having said that, we do fall into idiocy fairly quickly. (laughs) We do have fun with these characters.”

As if I had any concerns, right?

Stay tuned for Part 2 of the interview, including thoughts about the possibility for Dr. Horrible 2 and his upcoming horror flick, “Cabin in the Woods.”