The Batman: Jeffrey Wright Reveals He Didn’t Recognize Colin Farrell As Penguin On Set

The Batman trailer was the big finale of the DC FanDome experience, and a revelatory one. Aside from the general tone of Matt Reeves’ take on Gotham City, or Robert Pattinson’s performance as Batman/Bruce Wayne, DC fans were thrilled to see The Batman‘s take on some iconic Batman villains. Getting first looks at Paul Dano’s Riddler and Zoe Kravitz’s Catwoman was easy, but most fans didn’t even recognize Colin Farrell’s Penguin, even though the actor has several key scenes in the trailer. To be fair, fans were not alone in their confusion: Even The Batman star Jeffrey Wright didn’t recognize Farrell as Penguin, while on set.

Jeffrey Wright recently did an interview on SiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, where he talked about the experience of seeing Colin Farrell as Penguin on the set of The Batman:

“I’ve worked with that makeup artist before and it’s just incredible. Colin walked on to set one day and I walked right passed him [laughs] I was like ‘ok, hey dude what’s happening, where’s Colin are we going to shoot.’ It was, it’s pretty remarkable.”

Well, aside from that being a nice little behind-the-scenes anecdote from The Batman‘s production, it also seems to be solid evidence that Jeffrey Wright’s Commissioner Gordon and Colin Farrell’s Penguin will be sharing a scene together. While on the surface that may seem mundane, it’s actually fairly significant. Jim Gordon doesn’t necessarily have to (or does) end up actually crossing paths with Batman’s rogues – that’s why Batman is there: to face a new breed of criminal the cops can’t handle. So how and why Gordon comes face-to-(unrecognizable)face with Oswald Cobblepot is an intriguing thing to think about.

More to the point: After going back and watching the scenes of Colin Farrell’s Penguin in The Batman trailer, we have all the reason in the world to be fearful for Gordon and the rest of the cops of the GCPD. Farrell’s Penguin isn’t hesitant to let off a hail of bullets from a MAC-11 submachine gun during a scene seemingly depicting a warehouse conflict with Penguin and his goons – the same can be said of a later scene in which we see Penguin fleeing in a dangerous high-speed chase. If Batman is coming to the scene to back the cops up against Penguin, then Gordon’s meeting with Penguin may indeed turn out to be a violent collision between cops and crooks.

The Batman will be in theaters on October 1, 2021.