Colin Farrell unmasked: The Penguin and Gotham’s new kingpin

Following a three-hour makeup transformation to give his Penguin - aka Oswald Cobb - his signature beaky nose and pock-marked skin, Farrell’s usually slim physique would disappear inside an enormous body suit to create the character’s bulky body.

But, in-between takes, he would overheat, therefore a special tent - known as the igloo - was created on the set so that he didn’t perspire and ruin his makeup.

“Three industrial air conditioners would pump into the tent and there was one chair and I would sit there and be bored and just stare into space. And so, I’d leave messages for my kids on the phone, ‘How you doin’? What’s up, kid’,” laughs the Irish actor, using The Penguin’s brash New York accent while chatting with STACK.

“I’m sure maybe they liked the first one. But then they’re like: Here he is again, yeah, the f-cking Penguin, very good. Impressive,” quips the Oscar-nominated actor with typical self-deprecation. “But I did that just to keep myself going and stave off the boredom.” 

If we often hear about actors packing on the pounds for a role - think Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones’ Diary, Robert de Niro in Raging Bull - then Farrell was not prepared to put on the weight for The Penguin.

“When I read the script first for The Batman, I was a bit baffled as to what I could do with it or how I would look. I met director Matt Reeves to talk about it and I had just come off a series called The North Water that I’d put on 50 or 60 pounds for. And Matt was like, oh my god, you look great, the body’s great,” he recalls. 

“And I was like, well tough sh-t, say goodbye to it because I’m dropping pounds now. I’ve got to get healthy again. I just finished being bigger for six months,” says Farrell, 48, who instead relied on bodysuit technology. 

Celebrated for his roles in The Lobster, The Banshees of Inisherin, and In Bruges, among countless others, he admits to actually enjoying his makeup process, rendering him unrecognisable from his usual handsome self.

“I felt like the circus was in town every morning that I stepped into the makeup trailer - and we had our own trailer just for Penguin. No one could come in, because the last thing you want to do is have somebody come in when the nose is half on.”

“I’d get very shy and vulnerable if someone saw me only half prepared. I wanted to just keep the secret to myself which is why I wore a balaclava in the read-throughs.

"But it was a great time for me because we’d come in, have our coffee, we’d all have a hug, I’d shave, sit in the chair, and then we’d start the clock, and it was about three hours. And I loved the process. It flew by. It was never a drag,” he says.

But it was hard to shake off such a dark character: “Taking the makeup off at the end of every day was helpful. It was a 45-minute removal, and by the end of the removal, it was a relief after being in it for 15 hours. Don’t get me wrong.

"I’m not feeling sorry for myself. But the relief of that sh-t coming off after 15 hours at the end of every day, it was like being reborn. You were like being born back to yourself. It was really significant.

“But by the end of it I was grumpy because it’s so dark and he’s such a remorselessly cruel character by the end that yeah, I was in a bit of a funk by the end. I was glad to be done.”

Once home, he would watch Pixar films to lighten his mood. “I’d go back to my hotel room, and put on Finding Nemo. In my life, I had to watch light stuff. I wouldn’t watch any dark material. Like, honest to God, Finding Nemo was the answer,” says the actor who, over eight episodes, developed an empathy for his Penguin creation.

“He’s born with a physical limitation that was really emotionally and psychologically crippling. He was bullied and treated cruelly by society. 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. 

“I’m a big fan of nature/nurture Darwinian. I’ve known people that have come from broken homes and violent homes, and they’ve gone on to do the most extraordinary compassionate things in their lives for themselves and their immediate family and friends and community as whole.

“And I’ve known people that have come from privileged, very loving households, and they have made a dog’s d-ck of their lives. And they have then gone through some healing and stuff, but they’ve really hurt a lot of people. So, there’s nothing linear really in this experience and what it is to be a human being,” he says.