When it comes to makeup and prosthetics in film, Colin Farrell's full-body transformation for DC's The Penguin is quite impressive (and very challenging). Originally debuting in Matt Reeves' The Batman, Farrell is set to return as Oswald "Oz" Cobb in The Penguin, a new series that will soon begin streaming on Max and is set between the events of the first film and The Batman Part II. However, becoming Oz once more is no easy feat according to The Penguin's prosthetic makeup designer Mike Marino (who worked with Farrell on The Batman).
Matt Reeves continues his The Batman universe with some spinoff TV series, and the first to release is HBO Max's The Penguin starring Colin Farrell.
Screen Rant got the chance to sit down with Mike Marino in a roundtable discussion with other journalists, asking about the whole process of what it's like working with Colin Farrell and transforming him into such a new (yet already iconic) version of The Penguin. In the interview, Marino reveals how long the process takes and how many hours Farrell typically spends in the makeup chair. He also speaks to the unique challenges and differences between working on a film like The Batman and a long-form series such as The Penguin.
Screen Rant: I was very curious how long the entire transformation takes to get Colin Farrell into Oz. How long does that take for the full prosthetics to be applied and everything? Was that time in the makeup chair minimized over time, or did it extend for the show?
Mike Marino: A lot of the time, at the beginning of any film or any series, you start off experimenting and you're doing all these things and trying to figure it out. So it's a constant exploration of how long something's taking. You try something different one day, okay, make it better. And then you're like, oh, s---, I messed it up, or whatever. It's always longer in the beginning, but once you get into the flow. I think when we started off, it was like 4 hours in the beginning of preparation, which is way too long, in my opinion.
We got it down to like two and a half hours each day. Each morning, some days, 2 in the morning, some days, 5:00 a.m. sometimes we were lucky and we started at noon if we were doing a night shoot or something, but it still takes a good amount of time throughout the day. And then once we're done in the makeup trailer in the morning, he (Farrell) films all day long and we hope it doesn't fall apart. So we have other specialists on set too, like making sure he's not sweating and ripping apart. And a lot of the time, the interesting thing is it's happening in the camera. Everything is happening live when we're filming it.
So sometimes his shirt or his suit or when he's leaning down or when he's looking down, it's rubbing paint off. No matter what we do, something happens, we have to go in and fix it and repair it and all those things. It's quite a long process, and he really is so incredible and patient. It is hindering, but I also think it's liberating in a sense as well, because he gets to lose himself totally and just become the character.
How did the prosthetic work change from going from a film to a long-form series?
Mike Marino: Well, a lot of it is pretty much the same. A lot of the materials are the same as what we did for the film. Although during filming of The Batman, Colin was heavier to begin with. He was coming off of a project where he had gained a little bit more weight. And through the progression of filming the movie, it was a year long. It was supposed to be, I think, five months or six months of filming. But with what was going on at the time, in 2020, it was always staggered, so we had a lot of breaks. So throughout the duration of that year, he lost, I think it was like, 40 pounds.
So I had to rebuild the makeup in the film. I think it was three times. So in the beginning, you're filming, and you're like, wow, this looks great. And then you have, like, two months off, and he's on an exercise bike, you know, and losing weight and losing weight because there's nothing to do at that time. So we would do a fitting before we started up again, and then the makeup wouldn't fit. So I said, oh, my God, I have to rebuild certain pieces. So we rebuilt it, and he kept losing weight, and we rebuilt it. So during the filming of The Batman, it was a really big learning experience as to, like, how to build all this stuff and what you can get away with. And it's very form fitting and very exacting.
When the series came along, his weight kept the same. It's consistent. So he finally had a Colin where he was not fluctuating his own appearance. So for the fourth time, we rebuilt the makeup again. So, I mean, there are differences here and there, you know, but it's primarily all the same. Other than the technological advances every year goes by, we invent something different. A silicone rubber that's different, a mold-making process, a technical thing that's different, or we change a hairline, or we make it better. Something is always constantly trying to improve.
The differences between the two are fairly similar. But the long series, I think we filmed on the movie, I think it was like 30 or 35 days of filming of him in the makeup, even though there's only six or seven scenes. On the series, it's all basically him, so I think we filmed 80 to 85 times he's in the makeup, so it's a hell of a lot more. And he's in it all day long. It's primarily him. So it was extremely challenging and more difficult. The series is much more difficult maintaining the look and maintaining it from falling apart throughout the day and all of those things. So it was an extreme challenge. Probably the most challenging thing I've done yet in my career.
Check out our other The Penguin roundtable interviews here:
The Penguin premieres September 19th on Max.
Created by Lauren LeFranc, The Penguin is a crime-drama spin-off television series of 2022's film The Batman. Set shortly after the events of The Batman, Oz Cobb, A.K.A. the Penguin, begins his rise in the underworld of Gotham City as he contends with the daughter of his late boss, Carmine Falcone, for control of the crime family's empire.
