IGN recently spoke to the creative team behind HBO’s The Penguin – showrunner Lauren LeFranc; executive producers Matt Reeves and Dylan Clark; Craig Zobel, who directed the first three episodes; and makeup designer Mike Marino – about bringing the saga of Oz Cobb (played once again by Colin Farrell) from the big screen to streaming.
Reeves, who directed 2022’s The Batman which introduced this new live-action incarnation of the iconic DC Comics baddie, has called the spin-off “a gangster story” that offers audiences “a version of Oz Cobb that was not like anything you'd seen in any of the other iterations.”
Humanizing One of Batman’s Greatest Villains
As seen in 2022’s The Batman, this is a Penguin who has not yet become the Gotham City criminal kingpin who, in the comics, has long been one of the Caped Crusader’s most persistent adversaries. Oz Cobb (née Cobblepott in the comics) is a lower-level underling of mob boss Carmine Falcone’s who, in the aftermath of Falcone’s murder at the end of The Batman, sees a path for himself to the top of the underworld and puts in a motion of a series of deadly schemes to get there. But The Penguin takes pains to make sure that Oz, like Tony Soprano or Walter White, is human enough for viewers to remain interested in week to week.
Matt Reeves: We wanted to do something here where it felt like an opportunity to do more of a gangster story, where you had somebody who was broken in some way that put them on the path for the dark American Dream and to try and understand who that guy was. And I think that whole idea, in The Batman, to see somebody who is not yet the kingpin, but we know he's going to become the kingpin, it makes you lean forward to say, "Oh, how does he go from here?" This guy who they think is kind of a joke. There's a line in the movie where Penguin says to Batman, "Hey, you know my reputation?" And he goes, "Yeah, I do. Do you?" And you're like, oh, I guess no one thinks Penguin's anything. What does that mean? How do we go from here to there? That was what we were excited to do in the series, was to understand what is it about this guy that's going to give him the stuff to make him the kingpin, but also is the stuff about him that is so broken that would make him want to be that, and how does that relate to Gotham?
Lauren LeFranc: It is challenging to try to figure out the balance between (Oz’s) humanity and bringing a level of empathy to him, which I think is really essential in creating characters and in deepening them, and yet also making sure and being always aware of the fact that he's not a good man, that he's a very complicated individual, and that I didn't want anyone left feeling gratified by his choices. That was very important to me, so for me, I think it's a balance. One thing that really came to mind is that anyone who is in a certain level of power gets to that place because people believe in them, because they're charming, because they bring you in. There's always a magnetic quality to sort of the best, most powerful people in that regard. With that can be darkness, and you might not really quite understand that yet, and it might be confusing, and somehow that's how you get some of these bigger personalities that have permeated our own culture and our own society. So to me, it was about that level of honesty and making sure that I represented Oz in that way.
Oz’s “Twisted Relationship” With His Mother
Like Tony Soprano, Oz Cobb has a very complicated, dark relationship with his mother, Francis (played by Deirdre O’Connell), that has caused its fair share of emotional and psychological baggage for him. This is among several alterations to the Penguin’s comics origins that help humanize him for his new solo series.
Lauren LeFranc: Oz and Francis have a very distorted, twisted relationship, verging on Oedipal at times. The thing that I was interested in is sort of dissecting in thinking about where a man like Oz comes from and what really forms him, who shapes him, that a character like Francis made a lot of sense to me to introduce and to really dig into more. When we first meet her in the first episode, it's through the lens of Oz, and we really see her in that way, and we sort of empathize more with Oz. And so, we can put our own notions about who Francis is or how she's cruel into that, and I hope by the end of the series you start to have a deeper understanding of who Francis is, why she acts this way towards Oz, and what she herself is seeking.
But I was interested in this idea of a woman who, in her time, wasn't paid that level of respect. She's cunning and smart, and what could she achieve if she was given the opportunity. And perhaps she wasn't, so putting all of that energy onto Oz, and we know that by the first episode, that his two brothers that he has have died, and we don't know why and that's a mystery in our show. But I think one thing that informed [the] Oz and Francis relationship, to me, is this idea that if you have three children, and you lose two of those three, you end up putting all of your love, all of your intentions, and all of your expectations onto one person, and that can be burdensome or it could be thrilling depending on who that person is, and for Oz, I think it's a bit of both.
Adapting Sofia Falcone, aka DC Comics’ Hangman
The Penguin introduces Sofia Falcone, the daughter of Gotham crime kingpin Carmine Falcone, into director Matt Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga. In the DC Comics, Sofia is revealed to be a serial killer known as the Hangman and while the Hangman moniker is affixed to her in The Penguin, the show is not a one-to-one adaptation of the comic book source material. She is portrayed on The Penguin by Cristin Milioti (How I Met Your Mother, Palm Springs).
Matt Reeves: When we were doing The Batman, I did a deep dive into the comics, and you kind of try and find those things that resonate with you. And then you kind of take something, and then you make it your own. Everything's about a reinterpretation. And I think that when Lauren was going off and trying to dig into the story that we were all trying to tell, she, I think, found ... with probably The Long Halloween, the idea of digging into that character, but I think that she wanted to make it very personal. I think there was something she wanted to say about being a woman in this world and that there was this kind of connection. There's sort of initially, what we were excited about, when Dylan and I were hearing the pitch from her, was this idea that obviously there was this history that she had with Oz that we didn't know about. We were like, what is that?
But that also, interestingly, they also were sort of the same in that they kind of were both marginalized in this world, that the Falcones kind of felt like they were in control. And Oz is kind of like an underestimated outsider who's making moves but nobody believes really can do anything. And she's been pushed to the side by, we find out, her family. And so they both are trying to find some way to get back into the world. So there's a thing where there's some unfinished business between them, but there's also this other part where you're going like, oh, there's a way in which you're together.
What Dylan and I think we're really excited about is for a moment they're kind of delicious partners despite the fact [of] something terrible Oz has done. At the beginning, if she ever knew that, that would destroy them, so wouldn't it be great to go down that path? And so that was what really captivated us about it. But I would say that I think in the process, this was something, in terms of making her sympathetic, in terms of seeing what she went through, that was something that was very important to Lauren, that she brought to us and that she wanted to do.
Dylan Clark: It was also something that Lauren did, creating empathy around Sofia in her family dynamics, with her father Carmine and Sofia being the favorite child. She was clearly the intelligent child that had the ability to run this family at some point. And of course, through the series you find out why that didn't happen. And there was something in that character development that Lauren did that just really connected us to that character. She's a very sophisticated character that has been raised in a mob family. She's been around the mob violence, she's sophisticated, and she has this opportunity potentially to run the family, but it's dangled in front of her in a way that doesn't happen. And so we just see how the behavioral manipulations, the complexities of all of these psychologies, where they're formed, and that empathy that's created there allows us to be in her shoes and really feel for her as she starts to evolve throughout the course of this show into the kind of player that she becomes against Oz, but it's grounded in a way that we connect to her and we feel for her.
Matt Reeves: I think that was one more delicious piece that she took is that Hangman moniker. To have the Hangman coming into the beginning of the show that has all of this weight, and then to dig into that and then realize, wait, this is something different that we're thinking. That's part of why she's drawn so differently, too, because you start to really have a lot of empathy for her and go like, oh, this moniker is undeserved. This is really painful.
The Penguin Gets a Robin
For nearly the entire series, The Penguin has a newfound henchman in Victor Aguilar (played by Rhenzy Feliz), a teenager who encounters Oz Cobb on the streets of Gotham and becomes his full-fledged protege, aiding Oz in his plans to rise up the ranks of the city’s underworld.
Lauren LeFranc: I was really interested in a mentor/mentee relationship for Oz. I think in the criminal world, young men are brought up and raised into it, and I think [of] questions of why a kid like Victor would be interested in a world like this, and I always viewed their first interaction as a distorted meet cute, and I did think when I first started to come up with Victor and this concept, why doesn't Oz get a Robin? Batman gets one. So that is where I started, that Oz himself would say that he's deserving of a mentee and to shepherd somebody in. I also thought about the power dynamic. It's no accident that Oz has taken a kid like Victor under his wing, because he likes being seen as powerful, and he knows that someone like Victor sees him as such, so it's more distorted. The idea of traditionally a villainous character bringing someone into his world is just sort of a different take in my mind than a Batman and Robin dynamic.
Matt Reeves: You're always looking for the lens through which to see something, right? And you are trying to give the audience access. By the way, that was part of Lauren's conception when she came into us and she pitched what could happen in the series, and the idea of this young kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. … This kid has come in here at the wrong time. He's using him in this way that, oh, now, well, clearly this guy's going to die. And to see that character, and have Oz be revealed to another person who is this guy, is a great access point. So I think having those kinds of characters in these kinds of movies, where you have larger-than-life characters, is a great tool. That was a complete invention of Lauren.
The Penguin Exposed
The Penguin reveals that Oz Cobb was born with a clubfoot and that he wears a brace to help him walk, albeit with a distinctive limp.
Lauren LeFranc: For me, I thought it was very important to show his clubfoot in the first episode, because in the movie you're not quite sure why he limps, and I wanted to firmly establish why and to show the level of pain that he puts himself through, but doesn't speak about it. Also, this is nothing that we've ever put on camera, but in my mind, because if you have a clubfoot, now there's a surgery you can get, and that often people do. And so, for my reasoning as to why he doesn't, he grew up with very little money. He didn't come from anything, and his mother didn't decide to spend the money on a surgery like that.
Also, because she doesn't see it as a disability. She doesn't see it as a problem. She sees it as a way for him to strengthen himself. Something I was conscious of are the sort of comic book tropes that have come before, of those who are other, those who have disabilities, those who have scars on their face. They're often easily depicted as the villain, and I think it's just an unfortunate thing in our comic book history, and I wanted to try to disrupt that as much as possible. So for me, it was important to show that Oz, psychologically, is a damaged person. Who he is inside is what informs the choices and the darker choices he makes. It's not because he has a disability. It's not based on the way that he looks. Of course, that's an aspect of his character, but that's not solely and predominantly why. So that was something that was always very important to me.
In a later episode, viewers behold a stripped down Oz, with Colin Farrell in a full prosthetic bodysuit created by makeup designer Mike Marino.
Mike Marino: [Oz is] stocky. He's powerful. He's got a lot of muscle under there, so he is not just this large guy. He's got a certain body type, he's got a warrior, a soldier's body, and if you really analyze, if you could see any of it, there's some scars on it and some things like that. Lauren and her team of people wrote that scene and little did I know after we figured it all out that it was shot in the daylight, complete daylight. I thought maybe it would be, he's inside this space and it's nighttime and we have some forgiving light, which always helps a makeup. But no, we were at high noon, bright, bright sun inside of a greenhouse, and we were like, "Oh boy, this is now twice the challenge it was in the first place to show his body and to show his hair…”
That was a real difficult challenge. One of the hardest things I've ever done, because it's not like a creature. It's not like a creature suit where you have an alien that's... no one really knows what it looks like. It has to be good. I'm not taking any credit away from that, but everyone knows what a human being looks like, and if you mess something up, if something's buckling strange or doing something, a novice can look at it and be like, "Looks fake."
So it becomes really, really challenging to try to fulfill what God and nature has done to a human body. How do we replicate that? How do we replicate the body, the hair and all of that and tie the face into it is a very, very challenging thing.
Creating a Devastated Gotham Post-The Batman
The Penguin begins just a week after the ending of The Batman, which saw The Riddler blow up the seawalls of Gotham City, unleashing a literal wave of destruction on the city. Craig Zobel directed the first three episodes of The Penguin, which depicts a city where FEMA trucks and aid workers are ever-present and the flood waters have yet to recede in some areas.
Craig Zobel: The show's themes are really about class disparity in a way that I don't know that you always see in Batman [films] just by virtue of the main character is a multi-millionaire. ... We got to have this other perspective. I thought it was interesting. Almost always in a superhero movie, the last climax, like crazy stuff happens and there's lots of damage and insanity, and then you don't check in with those people until the next movie three years later or something. I think that it was appealing to say like what happens two days after that?
We did a lot of research. Kalina [Ivanov], the production designer, and I did a lot of research looking at after the levee is broken in New Orleans during [Hurricane] Katrina and sort of like how precarious the world really quickly in America turned on a dime for a second there and it was quite dramatic. And to try to imagine what Gotham City looked like during that and to make this kind of fake version of something like that but in a realistic way as much as we could was, I thought, a fun exploration.
Why Carmine Falcone Was Recast
While John Turturro played the role of Gotham City kingpin Carmine Falcone in The Batman, the character appears in flashbacks in The Penguin where he is portrayed by Mark Strong (Shazam!, Green Lantern).
Lauren LeFranc: Well, practically, John was just unavailable to us. He had scheduling conflicts, and we couldn't make it work, but honestly, I'm so thrilled that we brought Mark Strong on. I think he's really good. Even though, maybe in the beginning when you first meet him, you might think, "Oh. Well, for fans of The Batman, I'm so used to John Turturro," and obviously John's a great actor, but I feel like the gravitas that Mark brings, it's different. It's very specific, and I hope, by the end of that episode, you're just thinking, "That's Carmine Falcone," and you're engaged in what Mark brings to it.
For more on the upcoming HBO series, read our spoiler-free The Penguin review, our explainer on Sofia Falcone, aka the Hangman, and why Robert Pattinson’s Batman doesn’t appear on the spin-off show. The Penguin debuts on HBO on September 19.
