Colin Farrell wore a prosthetic penis

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses plot points from the series premiere of ‘The Penguin’ now streaming on Max.

In the climax of the premiere episode of HBO’s “The Penguin,” Colin Farrell’s Oz Cobb is stripped naked and tortured by Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone.

Falcone does this because she justifiably suspects Oz is responsible for the murder of Alberto Falcone, her brother – and the son of infamous crime boss Carmine Falcone, who was killed by Paul Dano’s Riddler in Matt Reeves’ 2022 film, ‘The Batman’.

The scene is twisting and horrifying, made all the more grotesque by the fact that Oz is naked and exposed. Farrell’s makeup and prosthetics team doubled down on Oz’s, ahem… physicality as accurate as possible.

While Oz’s body isn’t shown in its entirety to the public, that doesn’t mean the team hasn’t created prosthetic genitals for Oz/Farrell to wear.

Farrell emphasizes that Variety how grateful he was to Michael Marino, the prosthetic designer of “The Penguin,” for “kindly making Oz, shall we say, anatomically correct.” I had a piece of Velcro to stick on and a nice retro bush.” These additional prosthetics, specific to the torture scene, were in addition to the layers of makeup and prosthetics he already wore in his body and face to physically transform into The Penguin.

“It caused me such surreal discomfort, which was strange because at the end of the day it was just makeup. It was so uncomfortable that I had to ask for a towel to cover me up between takes,” says Farrell. “That was a kind of strange psychological no man’s land that you could find yourself in when you’re the canvas for something as powerful as the makeup that was designed for it.”

He continues: “I felt incredibly exposed, even though I was anything but. I was completely covered, but I was covered by a naked man. And it’s not that I thought I was him, but it had a very strange effect on my ego.”

“The Penguin” is a crime thriller spin-off series created by HBO and set in the world of Reeves’ 2022 Batman blockbuster. Set approximately a week after the events of the film, the story chronicles the meteoric rise of Cobb’s rise to power as one of the most infamous players in Batman’s rogues gallery.

Lauren LeFranc is the showrunner behind the series, which includes Reeves and director Craig Zobel as executive producers. In addition to Farrell and Milioti, “The Penguin” also stars Deidre O’Connell as Oz’s mother, Francis Cobb; Rhenzy Feliz as his young protégé, Victor Aguilar and Clancy Brown as rival crime boss Salvatore Maroni.

The episode ends with Oz turning the tables on Sofia and manipulating the Falcones into believing that Maroni murdered Alberto to avenge their usurpation of Maroni’s criminal empire.

LeFranc wanted Oz’s ability to get out of this deadly situation to show that he is not someone to be trifled with. He is calculating, ambitious and has foresight. His ability to outsmart the system allows him to always be two steps ahead of his enemies.

“Oz is a gamer; he’s a schemer. He’s very smart and calculated, and in the first episode we really show how impulsive he can be, especially when he’s being laughed at and left out,” LeFranc says. “He is very inventive in his violence and his ambition.”

“I didn’t want to end in a complete cliffhanger,” she continues. “I wanted to set the tone for the audience for the kind of show we wanted to be. A man like Oz can do all this incredible violence. This woman can torture him, and at the end of the day he can still sit and drink a slushie and remain seemingly unaffected. And that makes him a very strange character, and I wanted to show that.”

The closing moments of the episode show Oz sharing a slushie with Vic Aguilar, in stark contrast to the opening of the episode, in which Vic attempts to lift Oz’s car tires. After threatening to kill him for his transgression, Oz finally agrees to let Vic prove himself – testing him to see if Vic can run with him to help Oz ascend to the pinnacle of criminal power of Gotham.

Fun fact: For those Batman comics fans who noticed how that tire scene mirrored that of Jason Todd’s introduction to the Dark Knight himself before his eventual turn as Robin in the comics, that parallel is intentional.

“I’ve been reading a lot of comics and I wanted to use different forms of inspiration and pay tribute to things that have happened before. I initially created Victor from a place of, you know, ‘Batman has Robin. Why can’t Oz have someone?’ says LeFranc. “In our hardened criminal world, young men are realistically raised and taught to be violent in the mafia. That’s part of it; it’s that nurturing culture. And so Oz nurtures Victor in many ways, and I was interested in telling a story like that.

Vic is a street fighter from Gotham’s East Side. Although his relationship with Oz starts off somewhat hostile, the two form a unique bond and work together to fend off the Falcones.

When asked what Vic sees in someone like Oz and why he chooses to stay with him (aside from the threat Oz poses to his life, of course!) Feliz says, “I think one of the things that comes to mind is: “What’s going on?” the path I have mapped out for me? If I don’t go with Oz, what do I have?’”

“He sees Oz as the answer to that question. There is an appeal to the life Oz lives,” Feliz says. “There’s money, there’s this power, there’s just trust that Oz has in him, and I think Victor finds that very attractive.

“He starts thinking, ‘You know, maybe me.’ can make something of myself. Even though my life hasn’t amounted to much, now I have the opportunity to be part of something bigger than myself.” That excites him, and even though he feels like he’s making the wrong decision, this is the decision he wants to make.”

Episode 1 of “The Penguin” brilliantly utilizes the world Reeves has created for “The Batman,” laying the seeds for what will come from the Penguin’s future in the franchise.

Here, Farrell explains the most shocking moments from the premiere, and what fans can expect from the upcoming series.

It’s insane to think that so much work went into creating these prosthetics that, quite frankly, would never be shown to the public.

Well, we didn’t know if the camera would have a wide angle view. Mike hedged his bet; he leaves nothing to chance. I was tied to the chair for hours. I couldn’t move because they had to knead it. They had to make the body and put it in the position I was going to be in, because there’s not that much to give when you’re making limbs. They had to wheel me from the trailer to the set in a wheelchair. It took six or seven hours of makeup.

It took seven hours to do your makeup?

I was in the makeup chair for the first three hours, and then they put me in the wheelchair for the next three or four hours. And then they drove me about 300 yards to the set, put me in, and that was it for a few hours while we shot. It was cool though.

The torture scene was by far the most climactic in the episode. What was it like filming alongside Cristin Milioti?

Oh my God, she is extraordinary to work with. With some actors you have an organic familiarity with it, and with some you have to work towards it and have it on camera – and it doesn’t have to exist off camera. But from the beginning I had a great affinity with everything Cristin did. She was incredibly impressive, and there was also a deep well of pain from which her character operated. One of the most incredible things Lauren did in crafting this entire story over eight hours of television was she really paid attention to every single character. Just because the show is called “The Penguin,” it’s not just my story. So I thought that was great.

What kind of man do you think Oz would follow in orchestrating his plan to deliver Alberto’s body to the Falcones?

He will do what is necessary. He is uncompromising in his individuality when it comes to his vision of what to do. Betrayal is something he doesn’t even believe in: you just do what you have to do to get ahead. And he was raised with his own shoelaces. I mean, his mother raised him, but he lost his two brothers at a very young age. His father was never around, so there is a certain amount of hardship that he has internalized. But it only means that he acts in the world with an extraordinary ability to understand human behavior. Perhaps not so much his own, as is often the case, but he can understand the behavior, needs, wants and desires of others. Where their weaknesses are, and what their weaknesses are – and he unapologetically manipulates them to his own advantage.

How does Alberto’s brash shot at the top of the episode fit into that caricature?

So the Alberto thing wasn’t a plan. That was, as he tells his mother, an “impulse.” And then she says, ‘No, it wasn’t an impulse. It was instinct.”

Well, you know, impulse is unguarded instinct, uncontrolled. You have an instinct for something and then are forced to do it. Then the urge to do it and the decision to act on it becomes the impulse that manifests. So with him he’s very resourceful. His ability to plan is extraordinary, but his impulsiveness is incredibly dangerous to deal with.

What do you think Oz sees in Vic? Why does he decide to cherish that relationship instead literal finish it?

What I see in him is vulnerability. I probably see, without meaning to, an opportunity to have company. Oz is probably lonelier than he realizes, but it’s that vulnerability, I think, and that longing for the way Vic begs me to spare his life. The energy of that plea, the desperation of that plea, comes from a person who I can get to do many different things for me. That Oz can do many different things for him.

I need to stop talking about Oz in the first person. It’s only been eight months…

This interview has been edited and condensed.