Robert Pattinson’s run as Batman in The Batman was quite well received by the audience, receiving a total of 85% Rotten Tomatoes score. However, apart from the lead actor, Colin Farrell who played one of the bad guys, The Penguin, was also quite praised for his work.
If you have seen the film and know what Colin Farrell looks like in real life, you know the two look nothing alike. If he were to walk into a crowded restaurant on a morning to get himself a cup of coffee, there was no way you would have guessed that it was the famous Colin Farrell in your local coffee shop. Well, that’s exactly what happened when the actor visited one in Ireland in his getup and no one recognized him!
Colin Farrell’s Makeup Passes the Test
When an actor spends hours and hours sitting on a chair transforming into one of his most iconic looks, he certainly would hope no one recognizes him. Who wants to have makeup done on them for hours on end to end up looking the same? If Colin Farrell had these worries they were soon put to rest when he walked into a Starbucks in Ireland.
Farrell had stated that it took him three to four hours every day to look like the Penguin for The Batman. He continued that it was one of the “most exciting, jubilant, celebratory experiences” he had in his career of twenty years.
During the first makeup test, Farrell was so sure that his new look would fool everyone, he went ahead to a nearby Starbucks where no one seemed to have turned their heads in the actor’s direction who had just spent hours trying to look like someone else. Mission accomplished, right?
“They’re cool about it in Ireland. People don’t be looking. People don’t be paying as much attention as you think!”
Fans of the actor took to Twitter to troll the incident stating that the people at Starbucks probably didn’t react because Penguin looked just like the average New Yorker and that the coffee shop got tons of different customers every day.
Penguin looks like an average new yorker so that explains that.
— m.m 🦇 (@underooswebsss) January 7, 2023
the starbucks barista later watching the batman and realizing she served coffee to the penguin pic.twitter.com/hZAecc8Bee
— hay 🎆 (@bishopsbeetle) January 7, 2023
bro must have been in new york
— DonRobbieBurner🫡🎳 (@DonRobbieBurner) January 7, 2023
Now if it was danny Devito version of the penguin then yeah. Colin’s penguin look like a normal guy
— Blessed to be stressed (@LanceLe42788877) January 7, 2023
Average Starbucks customer looks like that tbf
— finger (@CinemaLord1) January 7, 2023
I'm sure Starbucks employees and customers see so many different people that he'd just blend in with the rest of them.
— Eric Hovland (@EricJHovland) January 7, 2023
According to a crew member, Farrell completely embodied the character only when he got into the get-up. It looks like the hours and hours of makeup paid off as Farrell’s performance as Penguin was widely celebrated.
Colin Farrell Will Return as Penguin
If the fact that Penguin almost immediately got his own spin-off project doesn’t say how much the people loved the guy, we don’t know what will. Farrell will soon be reprising his role as one of the villains of The Batman, however this time the spotlight will be completely on him.
At the Palm Springs International Festival Awards Gala, Farrell opened up about his upcoming series, The Penguin, with Variety. He stated that while there was extraordinary work done by the makeup artists on the sets of the movie, Farrell wanted to explore the character beyond the few scenes in the movie.
“The only thing I had an idea was that I wasn’t nearly getting to explore the character as much as I wanted to. Because there was all this extraordinary work done by [makeup artists] Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine and his team, and I just thought it was the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun, that we were getting to do the six or seven scenes that we did in the film. I was grateful for them, but I wanted more.”
The Phone Booth actor then revealed that after he had thought about the idea, he talked to producer Dylan Clark who was all in for the plan. However, the one thing that really drove Farrell to do a spin-off series was the makeup artists’ fantastic work making him look like Penguin. While there isn’t much that is known about the upcoming spin-off series, we sure are excited to see Farrell transform again!
The HBO Max series, The Penguin will begin production in February and will be released either in late 2023 or early 2024. Meanwhile, you can stream The Batman on HBO Max.
Source: Variety
