The Penguin Star Breaks Silence on Role in The Batman HBO Max Spinoff

One of the newest cast members for The Penguin is breaking their silence on joining The Batman spinoff. The Penguin is an upcoming HBO Max series that stars Colin Farrell, who portrayed Oswald Cobblepot in the 2022 film. A report from earlier this week stated that The Penguin was adding three new cast members: Michael Kelly, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and Deirdre O’Connell. While all three of their roles are currently unknown, Aghdashloo is speaking out to confirm her casting, along with sharing excitement about joining The Batman‘s growing universe.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag…” Shohreh Aghdashloo tweeted with a laughing emoji and a cat emoji. “We’ll start shooting very soon, and I cannot wait to portray this challenging character with such brilliant cast members.” The star also shared a link to the Variety story announcing her casting alongside Michael Kelly and Deirdre O’Connell. Fans will recognize Shohreh Aghdashloo from projects such as The Expanse and House of Sand And Fog.

Batgirl Star Leslie Grace Pushes Back on Claim Film Was Unreleasable

Another DC project that was originally scheduled for an HBO Max release was Batgirl, starring Leslie Grace in the titular role. Unfortunately, Warner Bros. Discovery decided to shelve Batgirl for a tax writeoff, with reports stating the quality of the film was substandard, and therefore not worthy of having extra money spent on it for either a streaming or theatrical debut. Peter Safran, one of the new co-heads of DC Studios, recently backed WBD CEO David Zaslav’s decision, suggesting that releasing Batgirl would have damaged the DC brand. Grace rejects this notion, saying that the footage she saw of the film looked “incredible.”

“I had my own meetings with Warner Bros. Film Group CEOs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca, and they explained to me, on a granular level, what they felt about the project, things that were out of their hands, plans, and budgets that were set in place before they were even part of the team,” Grace told Variety in a new interview. “There are a lot of things that I learned through the experience about moviemaking, that as an actress you have no control over. They weren’t really specific on anything creative in terms of what they felt about the film and how it would’ve hurt DC creatively. But I’m a human being, and people have perceptions and people read things. And when words are expressed very lightly about work that people really dedicated a lot of time to — not just myself but the whole crew — I can understand how it could be frustrating.”

She continued, explaining that filming Batgirl wasn’t without its challenges. However, that’s true of any film.

“I’m not going to lie to you,” she said. “In every film, there are obstacles, and our film was nothing short of that. Half of the shoot was night shoots in Scotland, where it never stops raining. So there were obstacles, but at the end of the day, because of the incredible crew, nothing that ever got in the way of us delivering what we knew we wanted to deliver for this film. At least from what I was able to see.”

Having seen a final cut of the film — or as close as the film is ever likely to get to one — Grace added, “That’s the one thing I asked for. I got to see the film as far as it got to; the film wasn’t complete by the time that it was tested. There were a bunch of scenes that weren’t even in there. They were at the beginning of the editing process, and they were cut off because of everything going on at the company. But the film that I got to see — the scenes that were there — was incredible. There was definitely potential for a good film, in my opinion. Maybe we’ll get to see clips of it later on.”