The Penguin star gave the perfect explanation as to why his Batman villain, Oz Cobb, is as damaged and cruel as he is.
Audiences were first introduced to the iconic mobster in Robert Pattinson's The Batman. In Matt Reeves' film, however, he only had a handful of scenes.
Looking to correct that, HBO set out to create The Penguin, eight episodes entirely focused on Oz Cobb's character and his rise to becoming the criminal kingpin in Gotham City (and that won't be the only spin-off).
But, in order to become such a piece of work, The Penguin had to have gone through a lifetime of misery.
The Penguin's Colin Farrell Perfectly Explains Why Oz Cobb Is So Damaged
The Direct attended a press conference for The Penguin, where star Colin Farrell broke down what exactly makes his iconic Batman villain tick.
When asked about what situations really led Oz Cobb to become the man he is in the series, the actor first pointed to the character's "physical limitation," which Oz "felt subjugated by:"
"He's born with a physical limitation that was, and pardon the pun, but really emotionally crippling for him, and psychologically crippling. And he felt other in a way that wasn't great. It wasn't an aspirational other. He felt subjugated by his own limitation and what he was told his limitation was."
The actor was also quick to note that Oz "was bullied," adding how that's "not justifying any act" he does:
"He was bullied. He was treated cruelly by society. I'm not justifying any act, but more often than not, when somebody commits an act of cruelty in this human experience we all share, you will find out that they had been treated cruelly at some stage in their timeline."
Despite the cruelty Oz has faced in life, he does have a seemingly loving relationship with his mother, played by Deirdre O'Connell. Though, even there, Oz never came first:
"And so, Oz had been treated with great cruelty. Not by his mother. He'd been treated with love by his mother. But even in relation to the perfect health that both of his older brothers live in, he was kind of secondary or tertiary. His mother was, as [showrunner] Lauren [LeFranc] designed and as [Deirdre O'Connell] was touching on, his mother was the greatest influence in his life."
"There was no amount of love," Farrell stated, "that [Oz] could receive" from his mom that "would have ameliorated the pain:"
"But there was no amount of love, I think, that he could receive even from her that would have ameliorated the pain that he didn't know how to manage within himself, and that's something that comes out later and in this tale over eight hours comes out in all sorts of grotesquely consequential ways."
He continued to explain how he is "a big fan of nature/nurture Darwinian," further giving examples of people he's met in his own life:
"I'm a big fan of nature/nurture Darwinian. It's all, it's a mix of – I've known people that have come from broken homes and violent homes, and they've gone on to do the most extraordinary compassionate things in their life for themselves and their immediate family and their friends and community as a whole. I've known people that have come from very privileged, very loving households, and they have made a dog's dick of their lives. And they have then gone through some healing and stuff, but they've really hurt people, a lot of people. So, there's nothing linear really in this experience and what it is to be a human being."
"Oz certainly has a back catalog of a lot of pain and a lot of uncertainty in his past," Farrell shared:
"But Oz certainly has a back catalog of a lot of pain and a lot of uncertainty in his past. And that was the beautiful thing about getting to do this show, was not just having something that was cool and violent and rock and roll, which at times it is cool, at times it is very violent, at times it is rock and roll. But all of the characters are kind of – nothing's justified, but we get to have a look at why people are the way they are."
The actor teased how "by the end of the show," Oz Cobb "has gone too far, and there's no coming back:"
"And is there forgiveness and is there redemption and is there a point where you've gone too far. I think by the end of the show, no spoiler alerts, but Oz has gone too far and there's no coming back. He has dropped into a certain psychological place in his life, and that's where he belongs now."
Another character in the series is Rhenzy Feliz's Victor Aguilar, who serves as Oz Cobb's right-hand man.
When asked how he worked to find his own character, Feliz pointed to the character's stutter being an integral point in exploring who Victor was:
"But how did I find Victor? I mean, so much of it's on the page. I mean, so much of it's there to begin with, and it's beautifully written. And then to find him, I think one of the major things that helped me was when we showed it, diving a little bit deeper into the stutter and figuring out the psychology behind that."
Exploring "the technical aspects" of it all "informed so much of how Victor moved through life in general:"
"And I had Marc Winski who helped me out on that. He was like my coach, like a dialect coach, I would say. I think, technically, it's like a fluency coach or coordinator or something. He came on to help me with the stutter. He has stutter as well. And so, get to use him as a source for information and then obviously all the help that he gave me and the technical aspects of it all. I think it sort of informed so much of how Victor moved through life in general."
Feliz made sure to clarify that Victor's stutter is "not everything that he is," but "it shapes him majorly:"
"I mean, it's not everything that he is, but it shapes him majorly growing up with something like that. And so, I think that so much of it was found in diving deeper into what it must be like growing up with a stutter, and then yeah, and then everything page as well just kind of all that put together kind of made what we see."
The Penguin is now streaming on Max.
