How “The Penguin” became the “Sopranos” of the Batman series

It has been 17 years since The Sopranos ended with the infamous cut to black. And while HBO has since offered several acclaimed crime series (such as Boardwalk Empire And True Detective), the company’s first attempt at feeling like a kindred spirit follow-up series, is oddly enough a Batman show. Or rather, a not-Batman Show: The Penguina spin-off of filmmaker Matt Reeves’ 2022 film The Batmanwhich centers on the power-hungry gangster from Gotham City (Colin Farrell), without a cape or hood in sight.

The Penguinwhich premieres on Tuesday (trailer below), has received great praise from critics (it has a 90 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although Hollywood ReportersReviews for The Movie were mixed), thanks to Farrell’s fascinating portrayal of a psychotic underworld gangster and Cristin Milioti as Sofia Falcone, heiress to a mafia family (in a performance that everyone will be talking about for weeks to come).

Below: Lauren LeFranc, the creative head of the show (Agents of SHIELD), talks about her bold approach to the series, which presents arguably the most grounded comic-inspired TV drama of all time and not just one, but two of the best portraits of DC villains ever put on film.

***

What struck me immediately was that you threw all the comic cliches overboard. There are no heroes, no fancy costumes, no other well-known Rogues Gallery characters. Oz has no wild plan to blackmail the town. One could imagine The Penguin I’ve never seen Batman and I think it’s a great mafia drama. Can you talk about that decision? Because it seems like a big decision.

I’m glad you feel that way, because that was the goal. We wanted it to be more of a crime drama than a comic book series. Matt created a very gritty Gotham City and a very down-to-earth Gotham in his film. I don’t think his film is too comic book-like in the traditional sense. And I definitely took some inspiration from that. Of course, it has Batman in it. And I don’t think Batman is really a hero or a villain. So for us, all of our characters are just normal people. Gangsters are historically larger than life, but they exist. Of course, we’re in the DC Universe. The series is called The Penguin and it’s about a man that some people call “the Penguin,” although that’s a derogatory term. He doesn’t like that. So it’s more like how gangsters give each other nicknames. So he’s Oz Cobb, just a man. There’s a little bit of an exaggerated element here and there, but we really tried to keep it very grounded.

Is it also kind of scary at the same time? They don’t use any of the crutches of the genre and some fans will certainly go into it with certain expectations.

You can never predict what people will think of your show and when you take the time to try, rarely does anything great come out of it. For me personally, it was exciting. I was working on traditional comic book shows and I didn’t want to do that anymore because I had already done that. I really wanted to live in more grounded worlds and was looking for a character-driven drama. This gave me that opportunity. So for me, it was very freeing to challenge myself. I’d never written a crime drama before and I wanted to see what my version of it would look like.

We’re usually impressed when a male author can write a really compelling female character. In this case, how did you approach the challenge of developing the voice and perspective of Oz Cobb, who so perfectly embodies this ultra-toxic male crime boss?

I suppose my perspective on him is probably different than most people who get the chance to write about a man like him. That being said, it’s really fun to write about an asshole. It’s fun and liberating to write about a middle-aged white man who says what he thinks and does what he wants. I don’t have the opportunity to live that way in my life. I didn’t choose to. But honestly, it’s a little exciting to write about a man like him. I wish more people in general got the opportunity to write characters who are different than they are. I’m grateful for that. Because I’m the voice of Oz and I don’t think people would think that’s me at first glance. But he’s in me in a very different way than Colin is in Oz himself.

It reminded me of Tony Montoya’s sentence in Scarface: “I always tell the truth, even when I lie.” He talks so much nonsense. But if he is upset at that moment, he probably believes what he says.

One hundred percent. I think Oz has to believe everything he says, even if in the back of his mind he knows it’s bullshit. He leads with his own truth. That’s kind of his personality, to the point of delusion. He’s a narcissist. But it was also important to me to make sure that what Oz says often rings true. I think a lot of us would believe that what he says has value. What he’s talking about is relevant in our culture and our world. He says it for his own benefit, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a universal truth.

Isn’t there a little bit of Donald Trump in there? Consciously, at all?

There are a lot of people in great positions of power right now that I think you can attribute to Oz. And I think it depends on who you ask – whether people see Oz as someone like Trump or not. I based him a little bit on Buddy Cianci, who was mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, for 21 years. He died, but he was extremely corrupt and extremely charming and very personable, and people overlooked his corruption because he revitalized the city and helped people. And I think that’s how Oz sees himself.

I never normally ask this question, but considering how extreme the physical and vocal transformation was for Colin, did he ever just stay in character between takes and takes? I suppose that would be easier than jumping in and out of character over and over again.

He is a real professional and has Jessica Drake, his dialect coach, with whom he has worked for a decade, and the two of them have developed this dialect together for The Batman. So she was always on set helping him. He kept changing accents between takes and sometimes it helped him to stick with that accent because it’s very specific and obviously very different from his own. But he didn’t stay in character as Oz.

Sofia Falcone is a minor character in the canon and what you’ve done with her – and Cristin’s portrayal – is incredible. What was it about this character and your interpretation of her that attracted you?

When I was thinking about who should be in the world with Oz, Sofia Falcone made a lot of sense based on the existing canon. She is Carmine Falcone’s daughter and Carmine dies in The Batman. Also, I read a lot of comics as a kid and I always loved the crime genre, and some of the female characters aren’t as interesting or don’t have as deep a backstory. They just aren’t given as much time. Which I thought was a shame as a fan. I really wanted to create a complicated woman that Oz would respect and that would challenge him. When I pitched my version of Sofia to Matt, he was very supportive and also enthusiastic. Matt also said that he approached the film by adapting literally everything – trying to pay tribute to the comics but then doing his own interpretation of it. That gave me the freedom to feel like I could do the same with Sofia. I wanted to create my own canon for her. I wanted her to come out of Arkham State Hospital and have this different backstory and experience the world differently than the woman you meet in the comics.

(The Penguin This question contains a minor spoiler for the season premiere, so stop reading here if you haven’t seen the season yet.) And then you have Rhenzy Happy who plays Victor. I know he has acted in other things like Marvel’s Runawaysbut it still feels like a real stroke of luck. And having stuttered as a child myself, I was impressed by how realistically it was handled. Why was it so important to have an average street kid as one of your main roles?

Part of the reason I created Victor was because that mentor-mentee relationship would make for an interesting dynamic. Victor is our lens into Oz, letting us into his world. Also, I’m half-Mexican and I wanted more Latinx representation, especially in this genre, and I thought there was a great opportunity for that. And I was also interested in someone that Oz would have a connection to. Oz has a disability, a club foot, and that shapes him – it doesn’t make him who he is by any stretch, but it’s a part of him. And I wanted to write a young man who stutters, but that’s not all of him. It’s just a part of him, right? I wanted them both to have that connection without it becoming something they talk about all the time, like a lot of us have different things that we all struggle with, and it doesn’t shape everything we are, but it’s a part of it.

This is really specific and not important, but it just caught my eye. Many people assume that Gotham City is in New Jersey. But in the premiere we see a “Gotham driver’s license,” which got me thinking: Could Gotham also be a state? Like New York, New York?

No, Gotham is not a state. Historically, it’s New Jersey, although a lot of people think it’s New York. But I also think Chicago is a comparable city. We shot in New York City and changed the skyline with visual effects to match the Gotham City skyline. I think that’s the great thing about Gotham City – it feels like it could be one of our own cities, and you can’t quite put your finger on it.

The Penguin releases new episodes Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on HBO/Max.