Colin Farrell Details His ‘Weird’ Transformation as the Penguin at N.Y.C. Premiere: ‘I Look in the Mirror and None of Me Was There’

Mar. 15, 2025

Colin Farrellconfessed how “weird” it was to transform into the comic book villain The Penguin during the Tuesday, Sept. 17, New York City red carpet premiere for the series centering on the character he first played inThe Batman.Farrell, 47, called catching a glimpse of his transformation into Oz Cobb startling during a red carpet chat with PEOPLE and other outlets.“Do you ever see cats looking at themselves in the mirror? How they recoil and they just don’t know [it’s them]?” he said, adding, “It was strange.”Despite the dramatic costumes and makeup, he added, “It’s not like I ever fully lost sense of myself, but it was a very powerful thing to know yourself a certain way for 45 years and to see a reflection. And it also kind of made me aware of how much I identified with how I look."“As soon as I look in the mirror and none of me was there, then, I had more of a blank slate than I usually have [going]to work,” he added, before crediting showrunner Lauren LeFranc and her team of writers to fill that “blank slate.”“It was amazing,” he added. “It was really, really powerful. It was something very powerful and very kind of hypnotic to the experience.”Colin Farrell at Lincoln Center on September 17, 2024 in New York City.Cindy Ord/WireImageIn a May interview withThe Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham, the Oscar nominee praised themakeup department’s work forturning him into a “marionette” that he was able to animate.TheSugarstar credited artist Mike Marino with transforming the actor into the Penguin. “He created this beautiful puppet and I got to animate it, and it was of joy," Farrell said of the artist, who previously worked with Farrell onThe Batmanin 2022.Colin Farrell and The Penguin.Cindy Ord/WireImage; Macall Polay/MaxTheTrue Detectiveactor also toldVarietyin January 2023  he craved more opportunities to play the character after working with Marino and makeup artist Mike Fontaine for only a handful of scenes inThe Batman.“Honest to God, any thought I had about an extended series was to do with Mike Marino’s work. I just knew there was so much to do with it — age it up, age it down,” he said.Colin Farrell as the Penguin.Warner Bros. PicturesTheshow was ordered straight to seriesin March 2022, almost immediately after theRobert Pattinson-led take on the superhero was released in theaters.AlthoughPattinson’s Batman will not be in the series, the eight-episode series starsCristin Milioti,Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, Clancy Brown andMichael Zegen. It picks up right after the events ofThe Batman, and shows how Oz tries to take a leadership role in the Gotham City underworld.Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.The Penguinpremieres on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max.

Colin Farrellconfessed how “weird” it was to transform into the comic book villain The Penguin during the Tuesday, Sept. 17, New York City red carpet premiere for the series centering on the character he first played inThe Batman.

Farrell, 47, called catching a glimpse of his transformation into Oz Cobb startling during a red carpet chat with PEOPLE and other outlets.

“Do you ever see cats looking at themselves in the mirror? How they recoil and they just don’t know [it’s them]?” he said, adding, “It was strange.”

Despite the dramatic costumes and makeup, he added, “It’s not like I ever fully lost sense of myself, but it was a very powerful thing to know yourself a certain way for 45 years and to see a reflection. And it also kind of made me aware of how much I identified with how I look."

“As soon as I look in the mirror and none of me was there, then, I had more of a blank slate than I usually have [going]to work,” he added, before crediting showrunner Lauren LeFranc and her team of writers to fill that “blank slate.”

“It was amazing,” he added. “It was really, really powerful. It was something very powerful and very kind of hypnotic to the experience.”

Colin Farrell at Lincoln Center on September 17, 2024 in New York City.Cindy Ord/WireImage

Cindy Ord/WireImage

In a May interview withThe Jess Cagle Show with Julia Cunningham, the Oscar nominee praised themakeup department’s work forturning him into a “marionette” that he was able to animate.

TheSugarstar credited artist Mike Marino with transforming the actor into the Penguin. “He created this beautiful puppet and I got to animate it, and it was of joy," Farrell said of the artist, who previously worked with Farrell onThe Batmanin 2022.

Colin Farrell and The Penguin.Cindy Ord/WireImage; Macall Polay/Max

Cindy Ord/WireImage; Macall Polay/Max

TheTrue Detectiveactor also toldVarietyin January 2023  he craved more opportunities to play the character after working with Marino and makeup artist Mike Fontaine for only a handful of scenes inThe Batman.

“Honest to God, any thought I had about an extended series was to do with Mike Marino’s work. I just knew there was so much to do with it — age it up, age it down,” he said.

Colin Farrell as the Penguin.Warner Bros. Pictures

Theshow was ordered straight to seriesin March 2022, almost immediately after theRobert Pattinson-led take on the superhero was released in theaters.

AlthoughPattinson’s Batman will not be in the series, the eight-episode series starsCristin Milioti,Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Deirdre O’Connell, Clancy Brown andMichael Zegen. It picks up right after the events ofThe Batman, and shows how Oz tries to take a leadership role in the Gotham City underworld.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

The Penguinpremieres on Thursday, Sept. 19, at 9 p.m. on HBO and Max.

source: people.com