Colin Farrell has opened up about why he didn’t opt to gain weight for his role as The Penguin.
Farrell takes on the character of the infamous gangster and DC Comics villain in the new gritty HBO series.
Those who saw Oz Cobb in 2022’s The Batman will recall that Farrell is nearly unrecognizable as The Penguin due to extensive prosthetics.
Moreover, the Oscar nominee’s well-known Irish accent is replaced with a thick, Robert De Niro-esque New York accent.
Leading up to The Penguin’s release, Farrell talked about the suit that transformed him into Oz Cobb, revealing how he had to spend around three hours in the make-up chair each morning before shooting. With this in perspective, Farrell is not eager to don the suit again anytime soon.
However, the suit had some advantages, as Farrell rarely felt the physical beatings his character endures in the series.
Speaking to UNILAD, Farrell shared: “There’s a scene where Clancy Brown is taking a golf club to me and he was like, ‘Are you sure I can hit you?’ and [I said], ‘Have at it because I’m not even here. I’m miles beneath what you see,’ so he went for it.”
Given the extensive hours spent in the make-up chair for his transformation into The Penguin, UNILAD asked Farrell if he ever thought about physically altering his body for the role, similar to Christian Bale who gained 43 pounds for American Hustle.
Farrell, however, was not considering this due to health issues stemming from weight gain for his role in The North Water.
“I didn’t consider it, no,” Farrell told UNILAD.
“I’d just come off filming something called The North Water and I’d put on a good bit of weight for that. For me, it was an enormous amount of weight and when I met Matt Reeves for The Batman film, he took one look at my body and said, ‘I love the way you look. I love the shape of your body,’ and I said, ‘Well say goodbye to it because I have gout and I have to get healthy.'”
“I was all about losing the weight,” Farrell added.
Farrell even proposed the idea of a skinny Penguin to Reeves.
“I tried to pitch [Reeves] the idea of a skinny Penguin – which he wasn’t buying at all. Thank god for technology and the terrific people that designed the bodysuit so I didn’t have to [put more weight on],” he explained.
The first two episodes of The Penguin are available to watch on Sky and streaming service NOW, with new episodes out every Monday in the UK. In the US, the series can be streamed on HBO and Max, with new episodes dropping every Sunday.