Colin Farrell Pumps Up the Power and Pathos of THE PENGUIN: ‘We Get to Have a Look at Why People Are The Way They Are’

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede The new HBO series THE PENGUIN obviously exists in the Batman universe, but lead actor Colin Farrell spent a lot of time thinking about cats. It all had to do with the elaborate makeup that completely transforms Farrell in the series, which premieres Thursday, Sept, 19, only on Crave (subsequent episodes drop on Sundays, beginning Sept. 29). To say that the OSCAR®-nominated Farrell is unrecognizable as Oz Cobb, a.k.a. The Penguin, is vastly understating it, and Farrell found the experience to be both frightening and freeing, in a feline kind of way. “When the makeup went on and I looked in the mirror, it was like those YouTube videos you see of cats, when you see a cat seeing themselves in the mirror for the first time, and they recoil,” Farrell explained during a group panel session with the cast and creators of THE PENGUIN. “I mean, looking at your reflection, and it’s not what you have seen for 45 years (Farrell is actually 48), it’s really, really powerful,” he continued. “And so, I just gave myself over to that. If you put something on that 100% changed everything that you are, you begin to feel differently, and it’ll be confusing at first. And it’s a little bit strange. But there’d be a stirring inside you.” Farrell is certainly hoping to stir things up with THE PENGUIN, an eight-episode DC Studios limited series that continues filmmaker Matt Reeves’ epic crime saga that began with the 2022 blockbuster film The Batman. Developed by showrunner Lauren LeFranc, THE PENGUIN centres on the character played by Farrell in the movie, while also starring Cristin Milioti, Deirdre O’Connell, and Rhenzy Feliz. Picking up shortly after the events depicted in The Batman, THE PENGUIN dives deeply into the rise to power of Oz Cobb in Gotham City’s criminal underworld. So it’s an origin story in a sense, but also a character study that asks a lot of difficult questions about nature versus nurture. “(Oz) was born with a physical limitation, and he felt ‘other’ in a way that wasn’t great,” Farrell said. “It wasn’t an aspirational ‘other.’ He felt subjugated by his own limitation, and what he was told his limitation was. He was bullied. He was 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 we all share, you will find out that they had been treated cruelly at some stage in their timeline.” Oz’s mother, played by O’Connell, endeavored to provide as much support as she could through her son’s formative years. But as Farrell observed, “there was no amount of love, I think, that he could receive, even from her, that would have ameliorated the pain that he didn’t know how to manage within himself. And in this tale over eight hours, it comes out in all sorts of grotesquely consequential ways.” Farrell recalled there were many discussions about how paranoid Oz is, and how insecure he is, and how much he really wants to be recognized as Gotham’s baddest of bad guys. “But the beautiful thing about getting to do this show was not just having something that was cool, and violent, and rock and roll – which at times it is cool, and at times it is very violent, and at times it is rock and roll – but while nothing’s justified, we get to have a look at why people are the way they are,” Farrell said. “Is there forgiveness? Is there redemption? And is there a point where you’ve gone too far? I think by the end of the show – no spoiler alerts – but Oz has gone too far. There’s no coming back. He has dropped into a certain psychological place in his life, and that’s where he belongs now.” On a lighter note, Farrell was asked if he had drawn assistance from anyone to help him prepare. “Danny DeVito (who played The Penguin in the 1992 movie Batman Returns, available on STARZ) and I shared a few texts back and forth, but that was more taking the p— out of each other about who’s the best Penguin,” Farrell said. “I’d send him pictures of action figures and s—, yours is more accurate than mine, what’s up with that, who did the paint job on my action figure … but nothing too serious or weighty.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv