The Batman: Colin Farrell on the Surprise Godfather Influence on His Penguin

Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as Oswald Cobblepot — better known as The Penguin — in the upcoming The Batman. But one of his influences might feel familiar: Farrell tells MovieMaker his Penguin is partly inspired by Fredo Corleone, the stepped-over brother in The Godfather.

In our cover profile of The Batman writer-director Matt Reeves, Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Jeffrey Wright, Colin Farrell and producer Dylan Clark share some of the films that influence the new take on the Caped Crusader. Among them are 1970s neo-noirs like Chinatown, Klute, and All the President’s Men — as well as the greatest gangster film of all, The Godfather.

Colin Farrell’s Oz — who takes great umbrage at being called The Penguin, just so you know — is the shady proprietor of The Iceberg Lounge, a Gotham underworld hangout, doing the bidding of reclusive crime lord Carmine Falcone, played by John Turturro.

“There’s a certain amount of brokenness in Oz that, I think, as a reference, not for me performance-wise, but just emotionally, as a reference for Matt — I think Fredo from The Godfather was a bit of a reference,” says Farrell.

Played by John Cazale, Fredo Corleone is the shaky, unreliable son of Vito Corleone (played by both Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro in Godfather films), who is stepped over by his sharper and more efficient younger brother, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino). Corleone betrays Michael, to the detriment of everyone involved.

Farrell’s performance is by no means an imitation of Cazale’s — he’s doing something entirely new, and thanks to the work of makeup artist Mike Marino, he bears no resemblance to any past Penguin — or even to Colin Farrell.

But his Oz does share Fredo’s sense of being stepped over.

“Matt was just talking about somebody who had very real and very lofty ambitions, but never really had the opportunity or the chance to explore them, and was maybe looked upon as someone who was handicapped, whether it was psychologically, intellectually — Fredo was frowned upon as less than the other brothers, and maybe Oz as well, in his life, was looked upon as somebody who wasn’t capable,” says Farrell. “And so that’s one of the things that fuels Oz.”

By the way, if you’re a younger Bat-fan heatedly awaiting the film’s release next month, you could do a lot worse than going back and watching the films that influenced Matt Reeves. In his too-short career, John Cazale appeared in just five films, but all were nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture: The Godfather I and II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Deer Hunter.

Three of the films — the two Godfather films and The Deer Hunter — won. If acting were baseball, Cazale might have the best batting average of any actor in history. Sadly, he died at just 42.

Here’s a closer look at Farrell as Oz:

The Batman opens March 4, from Warner Bros. 

Main image: Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin. Photo by Jonathan Olley/™ & © DC Comics, courtesy of Warner Bros.