Exclusive: The Penguin stars tell us what the fan love means to them, where the show's going

The Penguin continues to kill it on HBO, delivering excellent episode after excellent episode. Per Variety, ratings for the show continue to go up week after week; the premiere was watched by around 1.3 million people the night of, the second episode watched by 1.6, the fourth by 1.7 and the latest episode by 1.8. This is the DC success story Warner Bros. Discovery needed, especially after the new Joker movie seriously underperformed.

There are three episodes left in this season. What's going to happen? We got the chance to interview the cast and crew members at New York Comic Con to pick their brains, starting with Cristin Milioti, who plays the rising crime queenpin Sofia Falcone...sorry, Sofia Gigante, please don't gas me in my sleep.

Miloti talked a bit about the fan response to the show, which she called "so beautiful." Miloti has been a fan of the Batman universe since seeing 1992's Batman Returns in theaters as a child, which she says was "burned into my cells."

"I was scared, I was thrilled, I was so drawn to it. And so if anyone is feeling a modicum of that...it's a dream to be able to do that...It's meant a lot to me."

Colin Farrell has justly gotten a lot of praise for playing the title character in The Penguin, but Cristin Milioti may be the breakout star; she's matching him beat for beat and is giving us a villain we'll remember for a long time. Showrunner Lauren LeFranc told us about how she approaching crafting Sofia's personality:

"I wanted to make sure I just evolved her as a character in a way that I kind of wished for when I was a kid: to have a complicated woman who was flawed and kind of problematic, but who you could kind of empathize with," LeFranc told us. "In crime dramas in general, sometimes the women are short-changed. You could love a character, maybe cause the actor's amazing, but they don't have a backstory...They don't have things for you to connect to. And I just wanted to take the opportunity I was given to create more interesting dynamic people...I just tried to create people in the unvierse that made sense for the story we were telling and not just to throw in characters to throw them in."

Rhenzy Feliz says Vic is on a "dangerous path" on The Penguin

That said, the show is ultimately about Oswald Cobb, the gangster who will become the Penguin. He has enemies on all fronts now that Sofia has teamed up with rival mobster Sal Maroni. Oz set Sal's wife and son on fire in the latest episode, so you can guess that Sal is displeased.

That said, Sal has a history of underestimating Oz, which could be to the man's advantage. Actor Clancy Brown, who plays Sal, doesn't think this is likely to change:

"Sal never takes Oz seriously," Brown said. "He hates Oz...He always thinks he's a scumbag. He always thinks he's superior to Oz." We'll see how that works out for him.

Oz has allies in his corner, too, like Victor, a teenager who lost his family in the flood that wrecked sections of Gotham City at the end of the 2022 movie The Batman. Vic isn't normally the kind of person who would get mixed up in the mob, but as actor Rhenzy Feliz explained to us, with his family gone he's at a loose end and looking for somewhere to belong. Oz provides him with a direction, although the jury's out on whether it's the right one:

"He's on a road now. He's made a decision...It's a dangerous path, with Oz in the middle of this battle, this war. And that's directly impacted by what's happened to his family. I think all of his actions have to do with that. But when you don't have time to deal and grieve, you just kind of got to put the next foot forward...until you get where you're going. He doesn't have the luxury of having time to sit and think and to grieve and to process this thing. I think he realizes, 'I can either go to California, and have this life that I don't really want, or I can try something and go for something here that's gonna maybe work out for me. I'm gonna go with Oz, I'm gonna do this thing, I'm gonna be a part of something bigger than just me. Let's go for it.'"

Let's cross our fingers that he makes it through the show okay. After The Penguin is over, Oz at least will show up in The Batman Part II, which is due in theaters in 2026. Honestly, I'm enjoying The Penguin more than I enjoyed that movie, and I wonder if we'll ever get a sequel series. “I think there’s always room for more of that," Lauren LeFranc told ScreenRant. "If the story can be even better, absolutely.”

But that'll be then. For now, new episodes of The Penguin air on HBO and Max on Sunday nights.

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