Danny DeVito and Colin Farrell swapped tales from Penguin’s lair, comparing notes on playing Batman’s nemesis and starring opposite their respective Catwomen.
DeVito played the villain in Tim Burton‘s Batman Returns, while Farrell headlined the HBO miniseries The Penguin as the character after debuting in Matt Reeves‘ The Batman, making for an apt pairing on Variety‘s Actors on Actors.
The conversation ranged from spending hours in the makeup chair to embody the disfigured antagonist to DeVito “lusting” over costar Michelle Pfeiffer, who played Catwoman in Burton’s 1992 feature.
“She was a goddess,” DeVito said of Pfeiffer. “If I knew she was going to be in a scene that day…”
“Did you brush your teeth that morning?” quipped Farrell.
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DeVito said, “I got all flushed. Put extra makeup on — ‘Give me another pound of makeup.’ It was very difficult.” He said it was “just so wonderful” working with the star. “And I lusted after her. I loved her.”
“We’re moving on from your lust,” Farrell said. “Just tell me what form did the lust take, behaviorally?”
DeVito quipped, “It was not me. It was the Penguin. It was Oswald that was lustful.”
“Was she nervous working with you?” Farrell asked. “Did she call security?”
DeVito replied, “I kind of feel like she liked it. She liked Oswald.”
DeVito shared that he would “absolutely” reprise the role should Burton call him up.
“I loved it because it gave you a freedom that burst out,” he said of the experience. “For you too. You can go off the rails with something.” The “operatic element” of Burton’s entry, which starred Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader and Christopher Walken as ruthless business mogul Max Shreck, “was my favorite thing about it,” DeVito said.
“The music and sets and the whole thing,” he said. “The Shakespeare of it — ‘All the world’s a stage.’ Oswald’s realm and his penguins and his minions and his passion. I loved that.”
DeVito recalled spending over three hours in the makeup chair each morning to become the villain, but his schedule — which included preparing pasta on set — wasn’t too grueling.
“It’s a cakewalk. I was there every day for 66 days,” he said. “In makeup, cooking pasta in the afternoon, having meals, making meatballs. I’m in the middle of a scene in the Penguin’s lair, and this wonderful guy who worked with me, I [call] him over. He goes through all these catwalks; he goes, ‘What is it, Dan?’ And I said, ‘Stir the sauce.’ He had to go back to the trailer to stir the tomato sauce.”
Watch DeVito and Farrell revisit Gotham above.
