Colin Farrell’s Penguin in The Batman is Inspired by Fredo from The Godfather

Colin Farrell will be playing Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot in the upcoming movie The Batman, and director Matt Reeves has shared his inspiration behind this new incarnation of the classic supervillain. In the newest issue of Empire, Reeves spoke about the inclusion of Penguin in the movie and addressed this take on the character’s influences. Per Collider, here’s what the director said about John Cazale’s Fredo in The Godfather playing a part in inspiring the new Oswald Cobblepot.

“There’s a touch of John Cazale as Fredo in The Godfather. He’s a mid-level mobster guy and he’s got a bit of showmanship to him, but you can see that he wants more and that he’s been underestimated. He’s ready to make his move.”

Other characters also inspired Oswald, but Fredo in particular must have been on Reeves’ mind during production, as he also told Colin Farrell about the association to the character. It wasn’t hard for Farrell to see the correlation, and that seems to have helped the actor with his portrayal as the supervillain. He’s also hoping he’ll get the chance to have a bigger presence in The Batman 2 as his screen time is more limited in this first movie.

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“[Matt Reeves] mentioned Fredo to me, because Fredo’s crippled by the insignificance that he lives within, in a family that is full of very strong, very bright, very capable, very violent men. Which is why he commits the act of betrayal that he does, because he’s weak, he’s kind of broken, and he’s in pain. There is a kind of fracture at the core of Oz, which fuels his desire and his ambition to rise within this criminal cabal. Where that rise goes … I would love to get to explore that in the second film, if that was ever to happen.”

We have seen what Colin Farrell looks like in character through previous sneak peek footage. He looks rather unrecognizable, and a part of the character transformation meant wearing a padded suit to appear more like a traditional characterization of the Penguin. This was because Farrell had intentionally slimmed down after gaining weight for his last role and didn’t want to keep it on to play Penguin, perhaps with the character having such limited screen time.

“Matt had seen the character as classically somewhat portly, rotund, whatever the word. I’d just finished [Andrew Haigh’s] The North Water, which I’d put on weight for, and Matt said, ‘You look great!’ I thought, ‘Well f***in’ say goodbye to it because I’m about to hit the treadmill. I need to get me health back.'”

The Batman also stars Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, and Andy Serkis. Matt Reeves directs using a screenplay co-written with Peter Craig. The movie has no connections to the DCEU or any previous projects as Reeves insisted on developing The Batman as a standalone story. It serves as a semi-origin story, set just two years into Batman’s career as a crime-fighter when the Riddler starts taunting him with puzzles at crime scenes.

The Batman is scheduled to be released in theaters on March 4, 2022.

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Jeremy Dick
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Jeremy Dick has been writing for MovieWeb and Horror Geek Life for years, is the self-proclaimed biggest fan of Bob Saget, and doesn’t particularly like talking about himself in the third person.

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