The Batman’s Colin Farrell Says Penguin Makeup Scared His Son: “He Was Utterly Horrified”

Oswald “Oz” Cobblepot might not scare Batman (Robert Pattinson), but actor Colin Farrell says his makeup transformation into the Penguin “utterly horrified” his son. The Batman star wore makeup and prosthetics to achieve the scarred, pock-marked face of the mid-level Gotham City mobster, an underling of crime boss Carmine Falcone (John Turturro). In a new interview about his unrecognizable role as the iconic Batman villain, Farrell recalled seeing himself in full cosmetics for the first time — and the “horrified” reaction of his youngest son. 

“The first time we did it… Mike Marino, the makeup artist who designed Oz, and his team, there was about 10 of us there that day. We took six to eight hours just putting in the teeth for the first time, the face for the first time, the wig, the bodysuit, the whole thing, and it was really powerful,” Farrell told Extra. “It just sparked my imagination and continued to every day that I went to work. I just felt like I had such license to inhabit a character in a way that I had never been given such carte blanche before.”

“I could see very little of myself,” Farrell continued. “If I looked in the mirror and talked to myself in my own accent, it would be more unnerving than if I assumed the dialect and the behavior, and that all made sense.” 

When his son saw him for the first time, the actor added, “He was utterly horrified. I have it on iPhone. He was horrified and excited, but it took a minute [to get used to].” 

For Turturro, who lords over Farrell’s so-called Penguin as a Gotham crime boss, “I, too, did not recognize Colin, and when I did talk to Colin up close, it was sort of an out-of-body experience.”

“I know Colin as an actor. He reminded me of people that I knew in real life, actually that look like that – and particularly his ears,” Turturro added. 

Starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Paul Dano as Edward Nashton/the Riddler, Jeffrey Wright as GCPD’s James Gordon, John Turturro as Carmine Falcone, Peter Sarsgaard as Gotham D.A. Gil Colson, Jayme Lawson as mayoral candidate Bella Reál, Andy Serkis as Alfred, and Colin Farrell as Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot, The Batman opens exclusively in theaters on March 4.