SDCC 2024: ‘The Penguin’ Panel Teases Consequences For Gotham In HBO Limited Series

“I grew up watching Burgess Meredith,” Colin Farrell said. It was memory triggered when asked about his first thoughts about taking on The Penguin from 2021’s The Batman. While the actor also appreciated the look of Tim Burton’s Batman films and Danny DeVito’s take on the character, it was those childhood memories of the 1960s Batman TV series that first crossed his mind. Although he didn’t want to put on the weight, he was “so humbled I could be part of the world of Gotham and decided “f*ck it, I’m in.”

Farrell offered these thoughts from Macao as other members of the The Penguin cast and crew sat down at Comic-Con International: San Diego on Saturday to discuss the 8-part limited series, unveil a new trailer (above), and usher Farrell’s costars Rhenzy Feliz and Cristin Milioti into the DC family.

The program begins one week at the events of The Batman. The flood is still an issue and, as showrunner Lauren LeFranc put it, “Gotham is its own character … [and] it’s broken like our characters.” Beyond the public facing issues caused by the disaster, there is also a crisis in Gotham’s underworld. The death of Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) has left a gap at the summit of its hierarchy and Oz (Farrell) is prepared to aim for the center seat of power. Well, provided Carmine’s daughter, Sofia (Milioti), doesn’t beat him there first. Or beat him to a pulp for that matter.

“We call it ‘daytime noir,’” LeFranc added.

According to The Batman director and The Penguin executive producer Matt Reeves, the idea for the series came from a plan to expand Farrell’s scenes in the first film and a concept for an early part of the sequel, tentatively titled The Batman Part 2. “Penguin in the movie was a red herring,” he explained. “So what I thought would be a great thing to do is take him in the next movie and show this guy who is underestimated and has this fury.”

He even suggested making this aspect of “The Batman Crime Saga” a limited series for HBO to a former person in charge of the DC Comics properties, but was told at the time, “We have nothing to do with HBO.” This discussion was so early on in the process, though, that Reeves was still convincing Farrell to play Oz in The Batman.

“I just didn’t know what I could do with the character,” Farrell said. He even declined to watch Gotham because he heard Robin Lord Taylor’s performance as a “thin Penguin” was impressive. It all changed, though, when Reeves showed him an early makeup design from Mike Marino. Farrell was so intrigued by the complete transformation of his face that he signed up and flew to LA to do a test with the prosthetics.

“He has a great face for makeup,” Marino said. “You have to add [onto an actor’s face] and he’s got the best canvass. It’s really something you dream about.”

“Practical makeup is a dying art, but for me it’s so visceral,” Farrell added. “And Marino created this thing … Sorry if I took a job from someone who looked closer to the Penguin.”

Flashfoward a couple of years. The Batman was nearing completion, the old DC management was out and Reeves was having a conversation with HBO chief Casey Bloys about bringing “marquee characters” to the network/streaming service. Reeves mentioned the plan for the Penguin in Part 2 and got a surprising response from Bloys: “Okay, that’s a show – we’re doing it.”

To expand the concept into an 8-hour series, Reeves brought on LeFranc, who was one of the first to see scenes from The Batman as it readied for release in the midst of the COVID 19 lockdowns. “I was alone and in a mask,” she recalled. “And it was incredible to see Colin’s scenes.

“I wanted to do justice to Matt’s world. Oz is the weird dark soul that I wanted to explore,” she continued. But she also needed to find a way in. It came from the story of “Buddy” Cianci, a former mayor of Providence, Rhode Island. He held the office for 21 years, but was mired in corruption. It felt like the perfect mirror to Oz. “[He was] in with the mob, but he helped people,” she explained.

Which led to the key focus for Oz in LeFranc’s mind: “he wants to beloved — by his mother most of all — but he’s afraid love is transactional.”

“I was baffled by how complete it was,” Farrell said of his reaction to LeFranc’s pitch. “I was just chomping at the bit to get back to it. Lauren, you’re twisted!”

Joining Oz on this journey is Feliz’s Victor, a character not from established lore, but a new face to the scene. As Farrell put it, “Rhenzy and I are like Stranger Things Upside Down version of Batman and Robin.”

“Oz is this big, scary individual in Victor’s eyes,” Feliz said. “They meet in an interesting way and he’s introduced to a world he’s never seen up close before. He’s a 17-year-old who lives in Crown Point and his life is forever change.” Of course, he teased that their relationship will evolve across the episodes, so it is always possible he will end as the Upside Down Nightwing or, perhaps, floating in the river.

Another key relationship in the series exists between Oz and Milioti’s Sofia. As seen in the trailer, she is a very different take on the character. She is a veteran of Arkham and, as Milioti and Farrell teased, she and Oz have history.

“I want to say its historical,” Milioti teased. “It’s a real power struggle between the two of them.”

Farrell added, “When we meet them in the present tense, something happened between the two of them and there’s this instant kind of tension. They’re incredibly wily, they’re incredible smart. And they both have to fight for what they have. They kind of mirror each other. They are on opposite sides of an argument that has very real consequences for Gotham.”

“The things I dream up in my backyard as a kid I got to do,” Milioti continued.  “I was always on the side of evil and [would] ride my bike around and pretend I was the Riddler’s daughter trying to take over his evil empire even though that’s not in the canon.”

But does that make her the hero or villain of the piece?

“I’m not saying,” Milioti declared.

“There are no heroes here,” LeFranc added. “There’s messed-up people.”

Reeves picked up the point, saying, “the characters do unspeakable things, but the show finds empathy for them and the actors found empathy for them. It’s a dark show, but it’s not gratuitous.” He felt, as the current custodian of these characters, that the show was also a moment to “say something that’s personal to us and relates to you.” And that led to a philosophy for The Penguin: “They’re not heroes, but they’re like us.”

Reeves also revealed Oz will have a part to play in The Batman Part 2 when it starts shooting later in the year. What that turns out to be, though, depends on the journey The Penguin takes when it premieres September 19th on HBO and Max.