Colin Farrell talks playing the Penguin in The Batman

Hollywood sets may be shut down due to the coronavirus, but you can rest assured that the second director Matt Reeves can get back to making his new Batman movie, The Batman, he will. He and his team were partway through shooting when everything shut down, so hopefully this won’t result in too much of a delay.

Image: The Batman/Warner Bros./Matt Reeves Twitter

The Batman has a terrific cast, or maybe “interesting” is the better word. You decide. At the forefront is Twilight star Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader himself. We also have Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, Andy Serkis as Alfred, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler and Colin Farrell as the Penguin.

It’s that last one I find the most curious. I’m used to thinking of the Penguin as a short, chortling, almost comic figure, whereas Farrell has usually been more of a dashing leading man type. Still, Farrell is psyched about the role, at the least. “It’s all exciting,” he told GMA News Online. “To be a part of that universe and just there are certain words that are part of my internal lexicon: Gotham City, Penguin, Joker, Batman, Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, all these things.”

"I watched the Adam West TV show growing up…So Batman as a kid, yes very much, not in comic book form but the TV show I watched ardently when I was a child.  And then in my teens I saw Burton’s version and loved it. And then obviously I was a huge fan of what Chris Nolan did with that world and how he brought it back to life and gave it an immediacy and a contemporary significance.  So just to be part of, again that folklore, that mythology, is again really cool."

Indeed, every era has its own version of Batman. It sounds like Reeves is going to try and keep his Batman down to earth, with a focus on his work as a detective. But that still doesn’t explain how Farrell will fit in as the Penguin.

“I had only started it and I can’t wait to get back,” he said of filming. “The creation of it, the aesthetic of the character, has been fun and I really am so excited to get back and explore it. And I haven’t got that much to do. I have a certain amount in the film. I am not all over it by any means. But there are a couple of some tasty scenes I have in it and my creation and I can’t wait to get back. Yeah, I totally feel like it is something that I have not had the opportunity to explore before. It feels original and fun. But I am only at the start of the journey so I can’t wait to get back and really get into it.”

I’m intrigued by Farrell saying that he “hasn’t got that much to do.” With the Penguin, the Riddler and Catwoman all lined up for the movie, I’ve worried that it might have too many villains; don’t we have to get to know the new version of Batman a little before we start meeting the whole of his famous rogue’s gallery? But maybe the movie’s strategy is to feature a bunch of villains but have some of them play supporting roles. That could free up the needed space.

And if Reeves and company are thinking of sequels — and the folks behind superhero movies usually are these days — maybe they’re laying in some characters to make fuller use of later. Personally, my money’s on that.

The Batman is set to come out on October 1, 2021. Let’s hope that sticks.

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