If you've ever read a comic book featuring The Penguin, chances are you'll be all too familiar with the sight of Oswald Cobblepot puffing on a cigar. In The Batman, Colin Farrell has been transformed into one of the most comic accurate versions of the villain we've ever seen on screen, and while we find him at an early stage in his criminal career, his umbrella isn't the only thing missing.
During a recent interview with Jake's Takes, Farrell explained that he did what he could to convince Warner Bros. to include The Penguin's cigar, but found himself fighting a losing battle.
"I fought valiantly for a cigar," the actor revealed. "I even said at one stage 'can I have it unlit' and they were like no." Many major studios have shied away from showing characters in movies smoking on screen in recent years, so this is by no means a surprise. We've never seen the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Nick Fury chomping on a cigar, either, but Farrell did offer an explanation as to why this iteration of The Penguin doesn't smoke.
"The Oz that we meet hasn’t embodied the energy of the Penguin that we recognize from the source comics and from previous films," Farrell said, alluding to his lowly place in this crime family, "so I’ll see if it goes again. I’d love to explore it because he’s not an underboss, he’s not a boss, he’s just a soldier of Falcone at this stage. But he has great ambition and dreams of doing big, big things."
We're anticipating Oz's arc unfolding in The Penguin TV series that's currently in development for HBO Max. It depends how the character's story wraps up in The Batman, of course, but it certainly sounds as if the stage is being set for him to undergo a transformation that brings him even further in line with his comic book counterpart.
The Batman is set to be released exclusively in theaters on March 4.
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