Colin Farrell Wore The Wildest Prosthetic In The Penguin Premiere

For a brief refresher, the scene in question is a hard-to-watch one when Carmine Falcone’s psychopathic daughter and ex-Arkham Asylum inmate, Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti), binds and brutally tortures her rival. Oz is stripped naked and, according to Colin Farrell, Michael Marino, The Penguin’s prosthetics designer, wanted to keep things as true to the character as possible. Grateful for the end product that Marino delivered, Farrell said, “I had a velcro piece to stick on, and a nice retro bush.”

Even though it wasn’t his real – uh – physical endowment, Colin Farrell remembers feeling a “surreal discomfort” while shooting this particular scene of The Penguin. Not only was he diving into the villain’s mentality and being completely transformed and made unrecognizable in appearance, but fully becoming the character in this way was truly mind-blowing for Farrell to deal with.

Revealing that he “had to ask for a towel in between takes” for some privacy, Farrell added that he leaned into the bizarre experience and allowed himself to be “the canvas” for the prosthetic and makeup team to show off their genius.

Already hitting the pavement with a 94% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Colin Farrell and the rest of the cast and crew behind The Penguin are off to the races. The Max series went into development even before Matt Reeves’ The Batman found major success on the big screen. Bridging the gap between movies, it was a great idea on behalf of DC and HBO to keep the hype alive and focus on another character.

Colin Farrell stars in The Penguin as Oz Cobb, a gangster who is one of the many lowlifes introduced in The Batman. After Riddler (Paul Dano) murders Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) at the end of the movie, the position is open for another ruthless thug to take over Gotham. While Oz may view it as his throne to take, Sofia Falcone is willing to do anything to keep the crown in her family – as made overly obvious in the show’s debut episode.

In the same way that the TV series picked up shortly after the final moments of The Batman, we know that Matt Reeves plans to make The Batman Part II pick up after the dust settles for Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb and the rest of the characters in The Penguin. With the script already finished for the eagerly-awaited sequel, audiences are understandably excited for more information to roll out.

While Bruce Wayne aka Batman has had plenty of movies and TV shows dedicated to his origin story and good deeds, characters like Penguin haven’t had the same luxury. When Matt Reeves dropped The Batman, and audiences responded well to its neo-noir vibes and darker tones, it was clear that a villain origin story like this one could thrive in his universe.

If you haven’t yet, you can see Colin Farrell and the rest of the cast of The Penguin in the first episode now streaming on Max with the next episode set for September 29. 

Source: Variety