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Posted in: HBO, Movies, TV | Tagged: batman returns, The Penguin
The Penguin: Colin Farrell, Danny DeVito on Their Different Oswalds
Colin Farrell (The Penguin) and Danny DeVito (Batman Returns) discussed their respective takes on one of Batman's most infamous villains.
Article Summary
- Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito discuss their unique portrayals of The Penguin in Batman adaptations.
- DeVito’s Penguin is a tragic, deformed outcast, while Farrell’s Oz is a ruthless Gotham mobster rising to power.
- Farrell reflects on finding common ground with DeVito's Penguin but reveals his exhaustion from playing Oz.
- The actors compare their influences, makeup experiences, and how Batman shapes their Penguin characters.
Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito played two distinctly different versions of Batman's The Penguin. DeVito, who played Oswald Cobblepott in the 1992 Tim Burton sequel Batman Returns, as a tragic orphaned character, raised by a circus troupe, born with physical deformities, into a life of crime, and finding himself running for mayor of Gotham City. Farrell's incarnation, who goes by the nickname "Oz," is a made man coming up in Gotham's syndicate working for Carmine Falcone in 2022's The Batman before emerging on top of organized crime by the end of the first season of the spinoff series The Penguin. As part of Variety's Actors on Actors series, "Oswald" spoke to "Oz" on their time as the infamous rotund Batman villain with DeVito wearing prosthetics on his hand to achieve a webbed look and his nose, pale makeup, and serrated teeth. In contrast, Ferrell donned a fat suit and not-as-exaggerated makeup on his scarred face.
The Penguin Star Colin Farrell on His Incarnation and DeVito's Similarities
When DeVito shared that he played some "really despicable characters; you've got to shed that [with Penguin]," Farrell responded, "There's an ugliness that your Oswald and my Oz shared, a kind of uncouth grotesqueness that they shared. But 'The Penguin's' Oz was so dark by the end, I was just over it. I was still grateful for it; I never lost sight of the fact that I used to watch you, sitting on my arse in Dublin when I was 13. And when I was 6, watching Burgess Meredith (from 'Batman '66'') — 'Quack, quack, quack.' I never lost sight of how lucky I was. But by the end of it, I was glad it'd come to an end. I was being completely buried. I had nothing of myself."
Regarding how Farrell defined his incarnation, he compared it to the Batman in his universe, played by Robert Pattinson, who didn't appear in the HBO prequel series. "Robert, what a thing to step into. I thought he was brilliant in it and completely original. It was gorgeous. In the world that Matt Reeves presented in the film, Batman was known of, but he hadn't quite become the staple of Gotham society. My Penguin knew of him because Oz is dreaming of rising to the top; he's a very aspirational character. And so Batman represents that. There's an envy, but there's also an admiration." For more, including how they compared their "empires," Farrell's Oz getting rejected by his mother played by Deidre O'Connell, and more, you can check out the whole segment.
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