Colin Farrell Is A Big Fan Of His Fake Penguin Face In The Batman
Robert Pattinson's take on Gotham's finest in "The Batman" might be drawing a lot of buzz, but Colin Farrell isn't letting him soak up all the glory. To be fair to Farrell, we have enough movies about handsome and young Batmen to last us a lifetime, so it really is the weirdo villains of Gotham that add a much needed spice to any given Batman reboot. And for Farrell, some of that spice comes from the off-kilter prosthetics that make his version of the Penguin, aka Oswald Cobblepot, stand out from the rest. After all, if you're going to be stuck in a make-up chair all day, you do deserve to brag about it. That's a fundamental right.
In an interview with Total Film magazine, Farrell dug into the design process behind his role, explaining that it was a true collaboration between director Matt Reeves and makeup artist Mike Marino: "[Reeves] had a clear idea about the silhouette of the man ... But I gotta give massive props to the artistic brilliance of [Marino] who designed the face."
No One in Gotham is Having A Better Time Than Colin Farrell
While remakes and reboots can often feel like less creative endeavors, it's easy to see why it would be fun and challenging to take a character that audiences know so well, like the Penguin, and break it down to its most basic parts then create something new with the rest. And often, it seems like having the structure of a well-known and understood character can be the catalyst for some wilder creative decisions. It certainly sounds like that might be the case with Farrell, who likens Marino's Penguin design to a malleable marionette:
"It felt like [Marino] created this amazing marionette and asked me to help inhabit/animate it. I'd no idea we were gonna travel this route. But once we agreed on it I got excited. Then I saw the design on a computer screen and I got more excited. Then we did a make-up test and I just felt so fortunate to be able to play in such a sandbox."
For Penguin, his appearance is more than just a character quirk that sets him a part from the other villains. His face is a physical manifestation of his worst qualities, which is clearly something Farrell has had to take into account for this role. As he explains in the interview, no one in Gotham is having a good time:
"I think – from what I read – every single character in [Reeves'] Gotham is broken ... Every character has some internal fracture or struggle that is striving for repair in a variety of ways. Oz certainly has his share of ghosts."
Reeves might be populating his Gotham with troubled people who have shady pasts, but it's obvious that Farrell had a lot of fun with his role. And hopefully we'll have as much fun watching it as he had playing it when "The Batman" hits theaters on March 4, 2022.