Ruthless Ending of ‘The Penguin' Makes a Potential Season 2 'More Difficult,' Says Colin Farrell

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6 hours ago

A frigid environment is befitting of a television show titled The Penguin, but the chilly conditions of its set had no bearing on the story being told. It was simply the manner in which series lead Colin Farrell preserved the three hours' worth of prosthetic makeup needed to transform him into Oswald 'The Penguin' Cobb.
'I was totally encased as Oz, and it was incredibly hot underneath all the prosthetics,' recalls Farrell.
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Between the 2 pounds of silicone rubber fastened to his head and a 30-pound bodysuit, the Irish actor was constantly overheating while playing his ambitious Gotham City gangster. There was even a stretch in the winter of 2023 where the eight-episode HBO series' New York City-area soundstage had the air conditioning cranked full blast, prompting the crew to don winter attire indoors. Eventually, the team set up a camping tent nicknamed 'the Igloo' for Farrell to cool off in between setups and takes. 'We had three industrial air conditioners funnel freezing cold air into it,' he says of the situation, adding, 'It wasn't fair that the crew had to [previously] wear fucking snow-goose expedition coats and scarves.'
Farrell's iteration of the storied baddie originated in Matt Reeves' The Batman (2022), which kick-started its own 'Elseworlds' crime saga, without any connection to the shared DC universe that DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran have since rebooted. Reeves, as well as the feature script he co-authored with Peter Craig, provided prosthetic designer Mike Marino with the basic parameters for the appearance of Oz (played by Farrell), one that became a rougher-around-the-edges take on Tony Soprano, but with the underlying desperation of Fredo Corleone, and some birdlike features to honor Oz's unwelcome moniker.
Marino and a half dozen of his fellow artists transformed Farrell roughly 90 times over the course of The Penguin, three times the amount of sessions they'd completed on The Batman. And despite headlines to the contrary, Marino insists that the leading man reveled in the 150- to 200-step makeup process that often began at 2 a.m.
'There are a couple of interviews where Colin said, 'Oh my God, I hated it,' but he's just bullshitting. He loved it. We had so much fun doing it, and he's the perfect person to wear makeup,' states Marino, something Farrell reaffirms. 'It was a beautiful time, to be honest. I've never felt such little total ownership over a character as I do over Oz, because of the village that came together to bring him to life.'
Knowing Farrell was keen to dive deeper into his Batman supporting character, HBO Max put the spinoff series into development during the pandemic-era streaming boom. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc was tasked by executive producer Reeves to create a bridge to the upcoming The Batman Part II and turn one of the most recognizable villains from Batman's rogues gallery into a relatively sympathetic protagonist (until he isn't). That meant introducing the audience to Oz's minuscule inner circle, composed first and foremost of his dementia-stricken mother, Francis Cobb (Deirdre O'Connell).
'The key to any character I write is finding empathy, and that really started with Oz's mother. It made a lot of sense to me that he would have a very complicated relationship with her,' says LeFranc. 'He's desperate for acceptance from the masses, but predominantly, he's striving to find acceptance and love from his mother.'
LeFranc also established his season-long sidekick, Victor 'Vic' Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz), after Vic and four other teenagers attempt to steal the rims off Oz's plum Maserati. Vic, who lost his family a week earlier when the Riddler (Paul Dano) bombed Gotham City's seawall, attempts to explain himself, but his stutter interferes. Oz, having his own disability, appears to feel some degree of compassion for the 17-year-old orphan.
'I hadn't gotten to see a lot of vulnerable characters like Victor in a crime drama or a genre comic book show. I'm half-Mexican, and I wanted a character that came from a loving half-Mexican, half-Dominican family,' LeFranc shares.
Oz then recognizes an opportunity to audition Vic as a jack-of-all-trades amid his bid to grab power following the Riddler's murder of Gotham's most notorious crime lord (and Oz's boss), Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), in The Batman. His first assignment is to help Oz move the body of Carmine's son, Alberto Falcone (Michael Zegen), whom Oz rashly murdered after the heir apparent to the Falcone crime family mocked Oz's desire to be remembered like a neighborhood mobster from his youth.
The crew's department heads had their own unique challenge in both re-creating and expanding the Gotham City of Reeves' Liverpool-shot Batman feature on a TV schedule and budget in New York City. Fortunately, there was synergy between the productions, starting with Reeves and the film's DP Greig Fraser, who provided Craig Zobel, director of Penguin episodes one through three, with tech specs for camera gear, lenses and lighting.
Production designer Kalina Ivanov and visual effects supervisor Johnny Han also received assets from their Batman counterparts to help reconstruct sets like the Iceberg Lounge using VFX. Han went through all the dailies for The Batman and found shots of the Oz-run nightclub to use as plates, as in an image that can be used to replace a greenscreen backdrop.
'Dan Lemmon, a VFX supervisor on The Batman, also gave me a mini-backstory on every visual effects shot from the movie. It was such a nice handing of the torch,' says Han.
The Batman (Robert Pattinson) oversees Gotham from above, and so Reeves and LeFranc decided that the Penguin would attempt to rule the underworld from below. 'They wanted to make The French Connection, which immediately grounded the project under bridges, overpasses and elevated subway tracks,' Ivanov says. 'We also went for very unusual geography, so we stayed away from Manhattan as much as we could.'
If Oz was going to serve as a temporary protagonist, then the limited series needed a primary antagonist who could admirably go toe to toe with him, and that's where Cristin Milioti's Sofia Falcone enters the equation.
Growing up in New Jersey, Milioti played make-believe as Batman villains in her backyard, so she immediately became enamored with the role of Sofia and understood the high bar that's been set by Gotham, New Jersey's many colorful villains. 'I've wanted to play a Batman villain my whole life,' says Milioti. 'There was a constant pressure — that was also very self-inflicted — to do it justice.'
Sofia spent the last decade in Arkham Asylum after confronting her father, Carmine (portrayed by Mark Strong on The Penguin), about his complicity in her mother's staged suicide. Her then-driver, Oz, had already blown the whistle to the mob boss about his daughter's interactions with a member of the press, and so Carmine framed his daughter for the reporter's corresponding death and several other of his serial killings as 'The Hangman.'
Tragically, the charitable woman who entered Arkham against her will left as someone else due to unnecessary electroshock therapy and generally inhumane circumstances. Upon release, one of her first orders of business was to slaughter the extended Falcone mob who aided Carmine's wrongful conviction of her.
'One of the worst feelings in the world is the feeling of being disposable, and that's what happens to Sofia on such a massive level,' says Milioti. 'I hoped that the audience would be on her side when she blossoms into this full villain because you really understand why she does what she does.'
Helen Shaver — who directed Sofia's origin story and present-day takeover of her father's crime ring in the John McCutcheon-penned fourth episode 'Cent'Anni' — says the filming of the rather harrowing chapter was the polar opposite of what one might expect. 'The opportunity to make that terrible betrayal by Oz and Carmine the bedrock from which this iconic character grows was very joyful,' Shaver shares. 'As great as the Penguin is, Sofia makes him a greater character.'
To make matters worse for Sofia, the one person who refuses to turn their back on her, her brother, Alberto, disappears. Despite initially suspecting that Oz was involved, his subsequent death is pinned on the rival Maroni family, courtesy of Oz and Victor's machinations, in the series premiere.
Moments before her grisly discovery of Alberto's body, Sofia tortures an unclothed Oz, which tested Marino's team to the nth degree, significantly upping the already three-hour prosthetic application time.
'The daytime is the hardest difficulty for a prosthetic. Any flaws can be seen in daylight,' recalls Marino. 'Colin was wearing this totally naked suit that's covered in hair and scars, and he was sweating in a burning hot greenhouse while tied up to a chair. It was the most challenging day.'
Oz's opening chess move involving Alberto began an all-out war for control of Gotham's drug market with ever-changing alliances. Sofia eventually receives confirmation that Oz murdered her brother, and based on a tip from Oz's lover, Eve (Carmen Ejogo), she abducts Francis for leverage. Oz had previously pretended his mother was dead in order to protect her from the type of blowback that comes with his affiliations.
With the help of Sofia's Arkham ally Dr. Rush (Theo Rossi), she gleans through Francis that Oz was responsible for the deaths of his older and younger brothers, Jack and Benny, in 1988. Oz is then forced to face the truth or else Sofia will maim his mother, but he still wouldn't come clean, leading Francis to stab him in the gut and forsake him before suffering a catastrophic stroke.
'Sofia understands that the gravest injury you can administer to someone is mental because you can't escape that,' says Milioti.
Frustrated by his brothers' insensitivity to his clubfoot during a fateful game of hide-and-seek, Young Oz's lack of impulse control factored into his decision to trap Jack and Benny in a water overflow tunnel. This is the same impulsivity that led him to murder Alberto Falcone three-plus decades later. Farrell knows Young Oz is responsible for the demise of his brothers, but he offers him some benefit of the doubt, at least until he allows hours to go by without sounding the alarm to his mother.
'I'm not excusing him, don't get me wrong, but he wasn't an architectural fucking engineer when he was 10,' says Farrell. 'I don't think he necessarily knew that, in closing one sewer gate, it was going to be hermetically sealed and the water was going to rise twenty feet, killing his brothers.'
Reeling from his mother's newly persistent vegetative state and how Sofia exposed his Achilles' heel through her, Oz decides that family of any kind is only going to hold him back from achieving true kingpin status. Thus, in the series' most gut-wrenching moment, he strangles Victor to death just after the young man expressed gratitude for their found family.
'He's always been this man. We've just been a little bit forgiving of him,' says LeFranc. 'When Oz kills Victor, it's like he's ripping his own heart out, and it's appalling. There's no justification for it. I hope that it leaves the audience to question why we ever trusted a man like this.'
Farrell, despite being 'nowhere close' to starting prep work, will next reprise his character in the long-gestating The Batman Part II. He also notes it would be hard to reposition Oz as a protagonist in a potential Penguin season two after ruthlessly murdering the pure-hearted Victor and contributing to his own mother's unresponsiveness. 'I certainly think it makes [a second season] more difficult. [Killing Vic] is a very hard thing to claw back from,' says Farrell. 'It's not impossible, but it's a tougher hill to climb.'
As for the physical impact the show had on him, one of the somewhat overlooked details in Farrell's performance is his Penguin-like waddle because of Oz's clubbed right foot. Farrell had to wear a supportive leg brace for full effect. 'I wasn't as smart as I could have been, which is not the first time I've said that in relation to work or life,' jokes Farrell. 'I did have some issues with my hips for a while, and my pelvis was a bit out of line, but I sorted it out afterward.'
In an era where the limited series is cheekily referred to as the new pilot, Milioti is excited about her character's still-undetermined future, whether that's a Penguin season two, The Batman Part II or a Sofia-led series that explores a relationship with her recently revealed half-sister, Selina Kyle (The Batman's Zoë Kravitz). In the concluding moments of the finale, Sofia receives a letter from Selina, providing her with a glimmer of hope after Oz finagled her readmittance to Arkham.
'I would love to continue to play Sofia in any way,' says Milioti. 'I would also love to see Sofia and Selina team up and wreak complete and utter havoc on Gotham. I don't think we've ever seen that in the Batman universe.'
A version of this story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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