The Batman: Colin Farrell’s Penguin Transformation

Colin Farrell is completely unrecognizable as The Batman’s Penguin! Literally, if I wasn’t told who plays the villain, I would have thought it was Richard Kind. In an interview with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Farrell shed some light on how the dramatic make-over was achieved.

Farrell started by explaining that he wasn’t inspired to put on weight all over again after the AMC+ series The North Water. He went on to say:

Mike Marino (makeup artist) is a genius. He’s an absolute and veritable genius. And that word gets thrown out a lot, but he is a drawing, sculpting, shaping genius. And he created this visage for the Penguin. I mean he and Matt talked about what physically the character stature would be, and I had been quite big for ‘The North Water’ and I didn’t want to naturally go big again cause I had a few little health things as a result of ‘The North Water’ and I was just like, f**k, this acting thing ain’t this important. I know the top actors that go up and down, and God bless them, I wish them good health. But for me, I think ‘The North Water’ is the last time I’ll go up that much. So, we decided on a fat suit.

Matt Reeves’ The Batman will be a real treat for DC fans who haven’t seen their favorite villains, such as Penguin or Riddler brought to the big screen for a very, very long time, even if Farrell will only be in a handful of scenes throughout the movie. He says that he doesn’t want people to get too hyper because he isn’t on screen for too long, but hopes that fans appreciate the makeup as much as he does.

From the tiny preview we’ve had of his outfit, we can safely say that The Batman’s Penguin won’t be anything like Danny DiVito’s version from Tim Burtons Batman Returns (1992). 

I’m only in it for five or six scenes, so I can’t wait to see the film because it won’t be ruined by my presence. Really, it’s a freebie to me. I’ll get a little bit uncomfortable for the f***ing nine minutes I have, and then the rest of it, I cannot wait to see how he [Reeves] brought this world to life. […] Look, I only had, as I said, five or six scenes, or seven scenes, and I wasn’t quite… I was up here early stages, looking at what I felt, what I could do, what I could bring to it. I was a bit lost. And then, when I saw what Mike did, the whole character made sense to me. I swear to God, I saw what he did, and I just went ‘OK,’ and I got really excited about it. All that to say that if anyone ever thinks what I do at ‘The Batman’ is a decent performance, I’ll gladly take 49% of the credits.

The Batman comes to cinemas March 4th, 2022.

Source: IndieWire

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