We’re just 8 days out from the premiere of HBO’s The Penguin, the new TV show centered on Colin Farrell’s version of the titular gangster, who debuted in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. (And which will serve as connective tissue between the 2022 film and its planned 2026 sequel.) Both Farrell, and showrunner Lauren LeFranc, have talked a lot about their enthusiasm for this project, which was born in part because Farrell was having such a blast giving (in our opinion, at least) the only really fun performance in Reeves’ movie. Now, though, it’s sounding like that fun might have slightly run out close to the end of filming on the eight-episode series, as the extensive prosthetics Farrell wore for the role started to sap morale.
Or, to put it more bluntly: “I never want to put that fucking suit and that fucking head on again,” which is what Farrell reported feeling to Total Film shortly after shooting wrapped. To be clear, the actor—who goes out of his way to be gracious in his comments to everyone who helped him get in that fucking suit and fucking head every day—isn’t ruling out a potential second season for the show, noting that LeFranc has approached him about a hypothetical return already. “Lauren said, ‘Look, if I could find a way that makes sense, would you talk about it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And maybe in a year I would.” At the moment, though, he’s in full “Daniel Craig right after he finished making a Bond movie” mode when asked about a season 2: “I don’t know, man,” he grimaces. “Don’t get me wrong – I loved it – but it got in on me a little bit. By the end of it, I was bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I fucking wanted it to be finished.”
(Our personal suspicion is that Farrell’s prosthetics were almost certainly a lot more cumbersome across the filming of 8 hours of TV than they were in quick bursts on The Batman, where he has a relatively small, but memorable, part. Also, we’d argue that they were then, and remain now, largely extraneous: Farrell is a fine actor in spite of going “there’s too much fucking shit on me” for the role, not because of it. But we digress. Weirdly, this isn’t the first time an actor from Reeves’ movie has talked about their costume driving them a little nutty while filming: Paul Dano described “a crazy feeling” he got from volunteering to cover his face in plastic wrap for his role as The Riddler, which led to him being overheated and oxygen-deprived. Farrell doesn’t sound like he got that far gone—”It’s not like I didn’t know who I was and I was going out and burning cars and shit,” he noted, describing his prosthetics fatigue—but it still sounds like a lot more trouble than, uh, acting.)
[via Variety]