Interview: ‘The Penguin’ Cast Unpacks the Depth Of The Creative Vision In The Gotham-based Series

Just as Oz Cobb has taken Gotham by storm, the HBO original series The Penguin has captivated fans of Batman, crime dramas, and richly developed characters. This series continues the story from the 2022 film The Batman, exploring the rise of a key villain in unprecedented depth.

While much attention has been given to Colin Farrell’s incredible physical transformation into The Penguin, the true strength of the series lies in the humanity of its characters. Under the guidance of Matt Reeves and showrunner Lauren LeFranc, each character is given extraordinary depth, making them far more than one-dimensional scene fillers. Cristin Milioti, who portrays The Penguin’s rival, Sofia Falcone, delivers an Emmy-worthy performance that ranks among the best in the long history of Batman adaptations.

At this year’s New York Comic Con, Awards Radar sat down with LeFranc and several cast members, including Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar), Deirdre O’Connell (Francis Cobb), and Michael Kelly (Johnny Viti). As fans eagerly await the next episode, here are some insights gained from the roundtable interviews and the NYCC panel. Each response reveals that the thought, care, and creativity visible in each episode of The Penguin are just the tip of the iceberg—there’s much more beneath the surface.

Below are some of the most fascinating moments, along with the full press room video interviews featuring each participant.

On the thinking behind telling a “Batman” story without any sign of Batman.Lauren LeFranc (Showrunner/EP): We always knew it was Oz’s story. To really embrace that and to make it interesting enough that you would want to engage with him, the idea of bringing Batman into it felt like it would only interfere with that idea. I think the burden of it is that we had to create interesting, dynamic characters that you want to watch, that you care about deeply, or that you’re repulsed by, or whatever you have strong feelings towards in some way or another, that you do forget and stop thinking about the Batman in that way. Because he’s going to show up in the second film, and then that’s his movie.

We’re all very POV-driven in this show, and Matt (Reeves) certainly is in The Batman, and we always viewed it as Batman’s film in the first one. He has a different perspective on Gotham City. He has a different perspective on the people he surrounds himself with.

He’s more of a hero, even though he’s not quite a hero either himself. But Oz is a wild man who’s kind of despicable and terrible and does all kinds of crazy things, and it’s fun to engage with that guy and fully immerse yourself in that world. So that’s what we strive to do.

I wanted to do right by the Penguin. I grew up reading comic books. I always really was fascinated by the Penguin character, and I also appreciated that there hadn’t been so many iterations of that character, so I felt like there was a level of freedom there.

I wanted to do right by what Matt established in the movie, and Colin’s performance, which is so electric when he shows up on screen. But I also wanted to dig deeper into him and just make this a psychological character study of this guy, but have it be fun because Oz is a fun guy, even though he’s totally terrible and does all these violent things. He’s engaging and charming, and I hope you empathize with him.

Hopefully you don’t make excuses for him, but you see him fully for who he is. And so there was a level of that, certainly, that was challenging of just making sure I’m honoring the things that have come before and trying to create new canon and try to break the mold of the genre a little bit and do something different.

Batman has been around for decades, why does the  Batman world endure?
Lauren LeFranc (Showrunner): Often people who don’t love superhero content really respond to Batman because there’s just something about him. He’s a flawed person. He’s very imperfect.

And so I think there’s something in that. And I think the villains that are in that universe also have that same quality to them, that there’s something about them that makes you lean in and you’re curious about them. And so I tried to infuse that in our show for the characters that we meet, of just having you empathize without making excuses and just want to learn more about them.

The inspiration behind Sofia’s story.
Lauren LeFranc:  I was inspired by Rosemary Kennedy’s story. You know, she’s deemed the forgotten or hidden Kennedy daughter. I thought, what would it be like if I could have my version of Sophia come out of Arkham State Hospital, but she was innocent? And what would that make her become? How could she still be this, like, thrilling, dynamic, scary, complicated, flawed person if she didn’t start out that way?

Because I think in the comics, so many characters are origined already with some sort of, like, damage or mental illness or something. And not to make that an excuse either, but for us to empathize and deeply understand that. So, that was something that was really important to me.

And that’s why Sophia’s origin is what it is.

On playing a character as dark and complex as Sofia?

Cristin Milioti (Sofia Falcone): I mean, it’s been a dream. Like, I’ve really, I’ve had the time of my life. I’ve been wanting to do something like this since I was little, which sounds crazy, but it’s true. I’m still sort of beside myself.

Sofia is stripped of everything and kind of descends into madness. What was it like playing her?

Cristin Milioti: It’s so rare that you’re given an opportunity to show that much of someone’s history. Especially to show why someone is driven to madness and that you really now understand why she does what she does. I’m trying not to use actorly words, like a feast.

You know, but it was, to read that and to get to explore that was actually the dream. I mean, I’ve always been a huge Batman fan as well, but also to get to do a role like this is, I knew reading that episode, how rare that is. I can’t speak to Lauren’s brilliance enough, because this whole world came from her.

On working on creating his character’s realistic stutter:

Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar)  Yeah, definitely. I worked with Mark Winski, he was my fluency consultant, is the technical title, but he was basically my dialogue coach. And he’s got to stutter himself.

And it was invaluable, the information that he gave me on what it’s like growing up. You know, 80% of the work that we did wasn’t necessarily on how to stutter, on the blocks or the repetitions or the running starts. It wasn’t on the technical aspect of stuttering.

It was more about the baggage and what goes on in your life growing up with the life of stuttering. How does that affect you as an adult, as a teenager, someone who hasn’t gotten over this embarrassment and shame behind stuttering. And so how does it manifest itself?

That was the most exciting part about learning about the thing. And we did, and we worked on it for a long time. It was one of the things that I was most nervous about going into the show and coming out, thinking what people would think about it, if it looked gimmicky.

Colin is unrecognizable while in character. What was it like working with someone, but not ‘knowing’ them when you see them on set?

Rhenzy Feliz (Victor Aguilar) : I know Oz better than I know Colin, to be honest. I spend more time around Oz and Colin being Oz than I did with Colin looking like Colin and being Colin. So in a way, I remember the first time that I watched the show, when they sent me the episodes for the show, before we started promoting it and stuff, I remember watching it and going, oh, like almost feeling like there’s the, that’s my guy, like there’s the dude that I, you know.

It’s almost like you miss the guy that you worked with for months and months and months. And you don’t get to see him again until you watch the show. And so it’s a very unique experience, but it’s awesome.

So if you were going to go up for a beer, you’d call Oz?

Rhenzy Feliz: I’d say,”Hey, I know it’s annoying, but do you mind putting the makeup on again?” (laughs)

When you’re dealing with Oz all the rules seem to get tossed out.  So how does that change your performance knowing that you’re dealing with that?

Michael Kelly (Johnny Viti): With Oz being as incredibly unpredictable as he is, I think that the level of respect that VD has for him, which is very little, it’s evidenced through that.

He knows what he is. He knows he’s a wild card. He knows he is not much of anything to VD.

He’s shown differently, obviously. And shown that he’s far more capable than VD thinks he is. But even then, he never really takes him seriously.

I don’t know. It’s interesting. And so for an actor, you play with what you’re given.

How was bringing that relationship with Oz/Colin to life?

Deirdre O’Connell (Francis Cobb): It was heaven. It was heaven. I think Colin and I were really lucky in that we just had a connection. We just connected really easily. intensely as those characters. Sometimes you don’t.

I felt like we were able to, every time we had a hard thing to do, and mostly we had hard things to do, it was kind of like deep sea diving. You just put on all the equipment and then you just go in. We were able to do it like that. We really didn’t talk about it very much. We didn’t rehearse it very much. We just, each of us, trusted the other one. So, we were lucky.

One request. Can you give us a season two?
Lauren LeFranc: All right, I’ll keep that in mind.

Awards Radar Exclusive Photos from the NYCC The Penguin Panel