by Gill Pringle
Colin Farrell reveals what it took for him to reprise The Batman role for the miniseries, The Penguin.
If Colin Farrell’s brief but memorable performance as Gotham City villain The Penguin in The Batman left audiences wanting more, then today their wish is granted with a new eight-part HBO TV series, The Penguin.
Recalling how director Matt Reeves first offered him the role in the 2022 film starring Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight, Farrell tells us: “When I read the script first for The Batman, I was a bit baffled as to what I could do with it or how I would look. I met director Matt Reeves to talk about it and I had just come off a thing called The North Water that I’d put on 50 or 60 pounds for. And Matt was like, ‘oh my god, you look great, the body’s great’.
“And I was like, ‘well tough shit, say goodbye to it because I’m fucking dropping pounds now. I’ve got to get healthy again. I just finished being bigger for six months’,” says Farrell who was happy to rely on bodysuit technology instead.
It was while Reeves was directing The Batman that the idea of a TV series centering around Gotham City’s “rogues gallery” occurred to him, landing on the idea of making The Penguin the first TV spin-off.
Pitching it to HBO, Reeves says that “they were very excited about it, and wanted it to be a marquee character, and initially my idea had been to continue Oz Cobb’s story in the second film.
“And so, I pitched them that idea, that in the wake of Carmine Falcone’s assassination, there was a power vacuum in Gotham, and that the version of Oz that’s in our movie is a mid-level, not kingpin version of The Penguin, and he is mocked and underestimated, but he has a deep, deep ambition, a sort of dark American dream building within him,” says Reeves who today serves as an executive producer on The Penguin miniseries.
Recalling how Lauren LeFranc would become The Penguin’s showrunner and main creator, Reeves says: “I had said to her, I want the story to take place a week after the movie, so that it is really in that moment of danger that we’re talking about at the end of The Batman, that this is Oz making moves.
“And she came in and pitched the story and we’re incredibly excited about it,” Reeves adds.
Starring opposite Farrell in the series are Cristin Milioti and Rhenzy Feliz, with guest appearances from Mark Strong as Carmine Falcone, Michael Kelly as Johnny Vitti, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Nadia Maroni, Clancy Brown as Salvatore Maroni, and Deirdre O’Connell as The Penguin’s mum, Francis Cobblepot.
Talking about the first time he was fully transformed into The Penguin on Reeves’ set, Farrell says that “it was one of the most magic days I’ve had in 25 years of working as an actor. I was so giddy with excitement. I was like: ‘I can’t believe I’m getting done up to be The Penguin. This is mad’.”
But nothing prepared him for the first time he actually saw himself. “I looked in the mirror, and it was like those YouTube videos you see of cats seeing themselves in the mirror for the first time and they recoil. I mean, looking back at it, your reflection, and it’s not what you have seen for 45 years, it’s really, really powerful. And so, I just gave myself over to that.
“If you put something on that totally – that 100% changed everything that you are – you would begin to feel differently, and it’ll be confusing at first, but there’d be a stirring inside you. And it’s a little bit strange, but it’s really powerful. And then you just, based on the writing and that makeup, you just give yourself over to it,” he says.
Celebrated for his roles in The Lobster, The Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruge among countless others, he admits to actually enjoying his Penguin makeup process, rendering him unrecognisable from his usual self.
“I felt like the circus was in town every morning that I stepped into the makeup trailer, and we had our own trailer just for Penguin. No one could come in because the last thing you want to do is have somebody come in when the nose is half on.
“I’d get very shy and very vulnerable if someone saw me only half prepared. I wanted to just keep the secret for myself, which is why I wore a balaclava in the read-throughs. But it was a great time for me because we’d come in, we’d have our coffee, we’d all have a hug, I’d shave, sit in the chair, and then we’d start the clock, and it was about three hours.
“And we’d play music and catch up and then I’d hit the script, and think about the scenes that were coming up. And I loved the three-hour process. It flew by. It was never a drag,” says the actor who nevertheless suffered from facial tenderness after repeatedly having glue applied to his face, forced to take facials. “The first two weeks was very rough on my face,” he says.
Following the makeup transformation to give his Penguin aka Oswald Cobb his signature beaky nose and pock-marked skin, he would be fitted into a body suit to create the character’s bulky physique.
In between takes, Farrell would chill in a special “igloo” where he could cool down while preserving his makeup.
“Three industrial air conditioners would pump into the tent and there was one chair. I would sit there and be bored and just stare into space. I’d leave messages for my kids on the phone, ‘How you doin’? What’s up, kid’,” he says using The Penguin’s brash New York accent.
But it was hard to shake off such a dark character: “Taking the makeup off at the end of every day was helpful. It was a 45-minute removal, and by the end of the removal, it was a relief after being in it for 15 hours. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not fucking feeling sorry for myself. But the relief of that shit coming off after 15 hours at the end of every day, it was like being reborn. Every day, it was like a birth. You were being born back to yourself. It was really significant.
“But by the end of it, I was grumpy because it’s so dark and he’s such a remorselessly cruel character; I was in a bit of a funk by the end. I was glad to be done.”
Once home, he admits he watched Pixar films to lighten his mood. “I’d go back to my hotel room, put on Finding Nemo. On my life, I had to watch light stuff. I wouldn’t watch any dark material. Like, honest to God, Finding Nemo!” he says.
The Penguin has previously been portrayed by Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito, and Farrell reveals how he and Danny have since bonded over the role. “Danny DeVito and I shared a few texts back and forth, but that was more taking the piss out of each other about who’s the best Penguin,” he laughs.
Having lived in The Penguin’s skin for so long, Farrell has a certain empathy for the character.
“He’s born with a physical limitation that was really emotionally and psychologically crippling. He was bullied and treated cruelly by society. I’m not justifying any act, but more often than not, when somebody commits an act of cruelty in this human experience that we all share, you will find out that they had been treated cruelly at some stage in their timeline.
“But definitely, yeah, I’m a big fan of nature/nurture Darwinism. I’ve known people that have come from broken homes and violent homes, and they’ve gone on to do the most extraordinary compassionate things in their life for themselves and their immediate family and their friends and community at whole.
“And I’ve known people that have come from privilege, very loving households, and they have made a dog’s dick of their lives. And they have then gone through some healing and stuff, but they’ve really hurt a lot of people. So, there’s nothing linear really in this experience and what it is to be a human being,” he says.
The Penguin is streaming now on Binge.
