Colin Farrell returned to the role of Oz Cobb in “The Penguin” derived series of “Batman” which arrived in the Max catalog this Thursday (19). Before his reprise of the role, Farrell shared that he consulted the actor Danny DeVito — with whom he co-starred in 2019’s “Dumbo.”
Farrell said at a press conference in West Hollywood, California, that he and DeVito “exchanged a few text messages” about the character, but that it was mostly just joking “about who’s the better Penguin.”
“Penguin” is a hard look at the criminal underworld of Gotham City presented in Matt Reeves’ “The Batman,” and puts Farrell’s morally bankrupt villain at the center.
The role, in turn, is a new version of DC Comics’ dastardly criminal The Penguin, a character played by several actors over the years — perhaps most famously Danny DeVito in Tim Burton’s 1992 film, “Batman Returns.”
While he noted that he watched DeVito as the Penguin and was “a fan of Burgess Meredith” in the 1960s “Batman” TV series starring Adam West, Farrell said the inspiration for his portrayal of the character ultimately came from darker, less comic-book-inspired sources, including Dustin Hoffman’s Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy,” Robert De Niro as Al Capone in “The Untouchables” and James Gandolfini from “The Sopranos.”
“They’re all there,” Farrell said. “Like, I’ve seen ‘Untouchables’ twice, I’ve seen ‘Midnight Cowboy’ four times. Anything, as an actor, anything you’ve ever seen, any piece of music you’ve ever heard, it all kind of meets you in there in a place that’s used, it’s filtered through every character that you play in bigger or smaller ways.”
Naturally, the character’s darkness was something very difficult to deal with. “By the end, I was in a bad mood because it’s so dark and he’s such a cruel, ruthless character,” Farrell noted. “I was a little bit down at the end. I was glad it was over,” he said.
In the chat, he also mentioned how he managed to get out of this state of mind. “I would watch Pixar movies. I would go back to my hotel room, put on ‘Finding Nemo.’ In my life, I had to watch light stuff,” he shared. “I wouldn’t watch any dark stuff. Like, honestly, ‘Finding Nemo’ is the answer.”
This content was originally published in Colin Farrell “studied” with Danny Devito before playing the villain in “Penguin” on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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