Colin Farrell Explains Why The Penguin is a Bad Guy

It’s great to see villains finally getting the recognition they deserve. With DC’s The Penguin series, the studio is focusing on the story of one of the most notorious villains in Batman’s life, portrayed by talented actor Colin Farrell.

Gotham City has long suffered the wrath of The Penguin aka Oz Cobb, who turned to a life of crime after various traumatic experiences. The show dives into the murky past of the villain, revealing to the audience why he does what he does best in the present.

Colin Farrell shares the crippling limitations of The Penguin

The Penguin is a long-anticipated series that brings the character’s trauma and life into focus to reveal the motivations behind his oft-evil actions. The rogues gallery villain is known for doing some pretty unspeakable things in his career, ultimately earning a place in the list of the greatest villains to wreak havoc in Batman’s life.

Actor Colin Farrell must have faced his fair share of issues in bringing such a complex and twisted character to life. Penguin has been through some terrible times, but leaving all of that in the past, he went on to establish the Iceberg Lounge and tried to live a comfortable life as a mafia boss. Explaining the inner workings of the villain, Farrell said in a press conference,

He’s born with a physical limitation that was, and pardon the pun, but really emotionally crippling for him, and psychologically crippling. And he felt other in a way that wasn’t great. It wasn’t an aspirational other. He felt subjugated by his own limitation and what he was told his limitation was. He was bullied. He was treated cruelly by society.

He added:

I’m not justifying any act, but more often than not, when somebody commits an act of cruelty in this human experience we all share, you will find out that they had been treated cruelly at some stage in their timeline. And so, Oz had been treated with great cruelty. Not by his mother. He’d been treated with love by his mother.

The tumultuous past is enough to make the sanest person lose their wits. Interestingly, Penguin is probably the only villain to come face to face with Batman without losing his sanity. Their relationship is that of a cat and mouse, constantly chasing one another to no end at times. At the same time, no amount of cruelty in someone’s past can justify the crimes performed by the Penguin. Farrell also emphasizes this aspect, regardless of how the show strives to present him as a sympathetic character.

Balancing Empathy and Disgust for The Penguin

Series creator Lauren LeFranc faced a major challenge while culling out the central points in Cobb’s life. Presenting him as the lead character of a television show required fans to have some empathy for him so that they were driven to come back for each subsequent episode. At the same time, the errors of his ways were not lost on the crew. Along the same lines, LeFranc shared,

It is challenging to try to figure out the balance between [Oz’s] humanity and bringing a level of empathy to him — and yet also making sure and being always aware of the fact that he’s not a good man. 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.

This is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges faced by showrunners who dive into the history of villains and their origin stories. Penguin is not a man to be trifled with but at the same time, he has a past that he cannot get away from. The series unravels his inner psyche without justifying or whitewashing any of his actions.

The Penguin is airing every Sunday on HBO.