With this week’s “The Penguin,” Oscar-nominated actor Colin Farrell steps back into the role of Oz Cobb, the hardened and upwardly mobile mobster first introduced in 2022’s “The Batman.”
The role is a new iteration of the dastardly DC Comics criminal The Penguin, a character that has been portrayed by numerous actors over the years – perhaps most famously by Danny DeVito in Tim Burton’s 1992 film “Batman Returns.”
Ahead of his reprisal of the role, Farrell shared during a press conference in West Hollywood, California last week that he consulted with DeVito – with whom he costarred in 2019’s “Dumbo,” also directed by Burton. Farrell said that he and DeVito “shared a few texts back and forth” about the character, but that it was more to joke around “about who’s the best Penguin.” (The pair, in fact, have a history of joking around.)
“The Penguin” is a hard-boiled look at the gritty criminal underbelly of the Gotham City presented in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” and puts Farrell’s morally bankrupt villain at the center.
While he mentioned that he did watch DeVito as The Penguin and “was a fan of Burgess Meredith” in the Adam West-starring 1960s “Batman” TV show, Farrell said the inspiration for his take on the character ultimately drew from darker and less comic book-infused sources, including Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy,” RobertDe Niro as Al Capone in “The Untouchables” and “The Sopranos’” James Gandolfini.
“All of them are in there,” Farrell said. “Like, I’ve seen ‘Untouchables’ twice, I’ve seen ‘Midnight Cowboy’ four times. Anything, as an actor, anything you ever see, any piece of music you ever hear, it all kind of meets you inside in a place that gets used, gets filtered through every single character you do in lesser or greater ways.”
Naturally, the darkness of the character was a lot to take on.
“By the end of it I was grumpy because it’s so dark and he’s such a remorselessly cruel character,” Farrell observed. “I was in a bit of a funk by the end. I was glad to be done.”
And how would he get out of that headspace after shooting?
“I watched Pixar films. I’d go back to my hotel room, put on ‘Finding Nemo.’ On my life, I had to watch light stuff,” he shared. “I wouldn’t watch any dark material. Like, honest to God, ‘Finding Nemo’ is the answer.”
“The Penguin” premieres Thursday on Max, which like CNN is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.