Colin Farrell casts doubt on playing The Penguin again saying ‘I wanted it to be finished’

‘Don’t get me wrong – I loved it – but it got in on me a little bit’

Colin Farrell has revealed that he’s unsure whether he wants to play the Batman character The Penguin again, claiming that the role “got in on me a little bit”.

The Irish actor has now played gangster Oswald Cobblepot in Matt Reeves’s 2022 gritty superhero epic The Batman and the forthcoming HBO show The Penguin, where he wears heavy prosthetics and a suit to physically transform into the comic book villain.

However, when asked by Total Film about the possibility of reprising the role in the future, Farrell appeared to squirm at the idea.

The 48-year-old said: “Don’t get me wrong – I loved it – but it got in on me a little bit. By the end of it, I was bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I f**king wanted it to be finished. I tried to remind them that I had ‘grumpy gratitude.’”

Farrell added that he had grown up watching the likes of Danny DeVito and Burgess Meredith playing the character and was honoured to be “part of the lineage of that storytelling” but admitted that it did take a toll on him.

He said: “It’s not like I didn’t know who I was and I was going out and burning cars and s**t, but… if you take what Matt Reeves created and then what Lauren [LeFranc, showrunner] did and what Mike [Marino, prosthetics and make-up designer] did and put them all together, it was a really powerful experience.“

He continued: “Lauren said, ‘Look, if I could find a way that makes sense, would you talk about it?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.’ And maybe in a year, I would. But when I finished I was like, ‘I never want to put that f**king suit and that f**king head on again.’”

Despite his trepidations, Farrell is set to play Cobblepot again with Reeves confirming to SFX magazine via Deadline, that the actor will be in The Batman Part II, explaining: “There are details that actually connect right into the way the next movie begins, and the way that Oz [Oswald] enters that world as we hand the baton back to Batman, and Batman is on another case.”

Colin Farrell as The Penguin in ‘The Penguin’ (Max)

While the sequel isn’t set for a release date until October 2026, Barry Keoghan recently hinted that he will be returning as the Joker.

Speaking to Variety, he said: “I can’t say much. The camera is looking right at me. We’ll see where that goes. Again, it was an incredible experience … and yeah, I can’t say…”