HBO is taking viewers back to Gotham for the first time since The Batman‘s debut in 2022 with the arrival of The Penguin and things are picking up where they left off just days after the city flooded following Riddler’s (Paul Dano) attack, leaving things in shambles.
But chaos in the streets is only one thing that Oz Cobb (Colin Farrell) is contending with as he grasps for power following the death of Carmine Falcone (played by John Turturro in the film and Mark Strong in this series). So, how has the Iceberg Lounge proprietor changed since fan last saw him on the big screen?
“Things have changed because the Iceberg Lounge is no more. He’s unemployed, but he’s still the same guy that we see in the film in the first episode,” Farrell teases TV Insider. “But very quickly, as a result of something that happens in the first 10 minutes of the first episode… he begins to change.”
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“There’s a darkness which is born of his desire and is born of his need and his ambition and also born of his wounds from his past, which is delved into later in the season,” the star adds, noting that while Oz “brought some levity to the film” because “he has a funny way about him,” there’s now “a darkness that begins to descend on his heart and on Gotham as a whole that is weighty… We really get into the weeds with him and one of the things that Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFranc [and her team of writers did] was really pay attention not only to Oz but to all the characters.”
When Farrell initially read the scripts, he notes, “I couldn’t believe it. It was so complex, it was tasty.”
As previously revealed, The Penguin will not feature Robert Pattinson‘s Bruce Wayne, but that doesn’t mean Reeves, who directed and wrote The Batman and serves as an executive producer on The Penguin, didn’t think about the possibility of including him: “We did talk about doing it, but the thing is it needed to be earned,” Reeves tells TV Insider. “What was really compelling about doing this [series is that it] represents a point of view shift. You know we’re in the world of The Batman and it has a very specific feel. And so when we come here, we’re suddenly in the point of view of Oz and the characters that you meet here.”
“Batman is such a powerful figure that if he comes in, he could mess with the narrative in a way,” Reeves adds. “It would suddenly in a way be taken over by Batman. And we wanted this to be Oz’s moment… and let this story be told, see the story of him having his rise.”
Still, there is connective tissue between The Penguin and The Batman as Reeves’ collaborator and fellow executive producer Dylan Clark tells us, “The neo-noir elements that were established in the film, certainly tonally were also employed in this series. There are noir aspects to this character from his musical references [and] his movie references. The gangster elements inside the city feel very much like a noir.”
As for Farrell’s physical transformation for the series, that’s all a credit to makeup designer Mike Marino who also worked on The Batman. “Oz takes his physicality and lashes out, and in his personality, changes to be something that he might not physically be, but he wants power and all those things. So I think the physicality changes, who Oz is,” Marino points out as he teases viewers will see an even more exposed Oz in the series.
See it all come together when The Penguin arrives on HBO and Max, and check out the full interview, in the video, above.
The Penguin, Series Premiere, Thursday, September 19, 9 p.m. ET/PT, HBO and Max