Warner Bros. Pictures(LOS ANGELES) — Amid the hype of director Matt Reeves’ reveal of The Batman trailer during the DC Fandome event over the weekend, it was easy to overlook actor Colin Farrell hiding in plain sight as the Penguin.
That’s right: among the buzz-worthy first footage of Robert Pattinson as the Dark Knight, and Zoe Kravitz as Selena Kyle/Catwoman, there appeared a gruff, balding, burly dude, who exclaims, mid-chase of Batman, “This guy is crazy!”
You’d be perfectly justified in not noticing, but that guy was Farrell, in heavy makeup.
So unrecognizable was the handsome Irish star of the Fantastic Beasts sequel and the recent Artemis Fowl, that the Internet mistook him for who his character actually looks like: character actor Richard Kind.
Twitter has gone a-twitter with people pointing out the similarities between the movie’s Oswald Cobblepot — that’s the Penguin’s actual name — and Kind, the affable Mad About You and Curb Your Enthusiasm player, with one user posting, “Richard Kind watching The Batman trailer, following it with a modified meme of Dwight from The Office declaring “Identity theft is not a joke, Colin.”
Another declared, “Colin Farrell’s got a career as a Richard Kind impersonator if ‘The Batman’ ends up bombing.”
Certainly, Reeves’ Penguin is a more subtle take on the usually umbrella-wielding baddie that fans are used to. The last time he was portrayed on the big screen was by a scenery-and-fish-chewing Danny DeVito, also heavily made-up and in a waddling fat suit, in Tim Burton’s 1992’s Batman Returns. More recently, Robin Lord Taylor played the character for five seasons on TV’s Gotham.
By Stephen Iervolino
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