Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, HBO, New York Comic Con, NYCC, ReedPOP, Rhenzy Feliz, The Penguin, TV
October 17, 2024
by Carla Hay
The HBO series “The Penguin” (a spinoff of the 2022 film “The Batman”) has been getting rave reviews from critics and fans, ever since it debuted on September 19, 2024. Based on characters that originally appeared in DC Comics, the Penguin is one of the more well-known enemies of superhero Batman. In “The Penguin” series, Colin Farrell reprises his role from “The Batman” as Oswald “Oz” Cobb, a disfigured crime boss who has the Penguin nickname because of the way that Oz walks, due to having a clubfoot. This role has Ireland native Farrell talking in a thick Gotham (New York City) accent and undergoing a complete physical transformation, thanks to award-worthy prosthetic makeup. “The Penguin” chronicles Oz/The Penguin’s rise in the criminal underworld in events that take place after “The Batman” story. Batman does not appear in “The Penguin.”
On October 17, 2024, cast members and other creative talent from “The Penguin” gathered for a two-part Q&A for a panel at New York Comic Con, at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. The panelists were Farrell; Cristin Milioti (who has the role of Sofia Gigante, formerly known as Sofia Falcone, the daughter of Oz’s deceased crime boss Carmine Falcone); Rhenzy Feliz (who has the role of stuttering teenager Victor “Vic” Aguilar, Oz’s driver and personal enforcer); Deirdre O’Connell (who has the role of Francis Cobb, Oz’s mother who has various health issues); Michael Kelly (who has the role of Johnny Viti, the acting boss of the Falcone crime family); Clancy Brown (who has the role of Salvatore “Sal” Maroni, the head of the Maroni crime family); The Penguin” showunner Lauren LeFranc; and prosthetic designer Mike Marino.
When Farrell was asked how he felt about all that prosthetic makeup he had to wear for “The Penguin,” he replied: “I loved the whole thing. I was made very aware of what a dream I was living through, bringing this character to life.” Farrell added, “So much of the work, I really did feel was really done for me. I said it before, but I felt that Mike [Marino] designed the most beautiful marionette, like he designed the most extraordinarily detailed puppet that had a sense of history and place and a sense of sorrow and a sense of violence.”
Farrell continued, “When I saw the design for the first time, it wasn’t supposed to be that way the first time. It was mostly going to be a nose prosthetic. [The original plan] wasn’t burying me [in prosthetics] … I did work, a couple of months before the [“Batman”] film with Jessica Drake, who’s a dialect coach. And I spent enough hours walking around in my living room and my kitchen, trying to figure out the walk.
“So, by the time we did the first makeup test in Los Angeles, it was all there. The makeup went on, the voice came out, the walk was there. And it all just came alive. It was extraordinarily powerful experience to look in the mirror and see something look back at you that is 100% unfamiliar to you—nothing you recognize about yourself. Even the eyes felt like they were swallowed by the brilliance of what he [Mike Marino] had created.”
When Farrell was asked if he thinks Oz was born evil or was made that way, Farrell responded: “Ooh, the whole nature versus nurture thing. I’m not certain … He’s had this sense of ‘otherness’ imposed upon him … He was always going to end up losing his mind at some point. [‘The Penguin’] shows his ascent into power but also his descent into madness that is born of the pain he’s lived in all his life.”
Feliz talked about Vic’s transformation into a having a criminal lifestyle with Oz: “It’s painful but brutal in a way. The life that Victor is headed down is not going to be a life of much success or incredible opportunities. What Oz is offering is a something a bit more exciting. And at the same time, he [Vic] has lost something. He lost his family. [Vic] is like, ‘I get to be a part of something now.'” Feliz added that Vic sees Oz as “inspiring” and somewhat of a “mentor.”
Farrell agreed about the Oz/Vic relationship. “There is a sense of a kindred spirit,” he said. “Their initial attraction is one that’s fraught with danger and violence and threat … The way that Vic responds to Oz’s threat is disarming in itself. It’s not just a kid falling apart and being scared. It’s a very particular way in which that fear is articulated.”
Farrell added, “I also think misery loves company. He [Oz] sees someone he can push around … and then he does grow to have an affection for him, for sure. Vic, in many ways to me, is the conscience of the piece. He is the purest representation of innocence.”
Milioti commented on Sofia’s views on power: “She wants power because she believes that she deserves it. And I think that’s why most people seek power. Pain that has nowhere to go. ‘If I can’t have love, I want absolutely unmitigated power.'”
As for Sofia’s personal history of spending 10 years in the psychiatric facility Arkham Asylum, Milioti commented: “It’s rare that you’re given an opportunity to show that much of someone’s history and especially to show why someone is driven to madness. I understand why she does what she does.”