Colin Farrell Fought for The Penguin to Smoke in THE BATMAN, But the Studio Said No

As you know, The Penguin’s signature trademarks include a top hat, monocle, and cigarette. The Penguin is a smoker. He’s been portrayed as a smoker in the comics, Danny Devito’s version of the character smoked, and the animated version in Batman: The Animated Series even had a cigarette. But, when it comes to Colin Farrell’s version of the character director Matt Reeve’s The Batman, the studio said no smoking.

In fact, we don’t see any of Penguin’s signature props inThe Batman. I get that the creative team wanted to change up the character’s look for the film, however, Ferrell did want Penguin to smoke in the movie. He said he “fought valiantly” for it, but in the end, the studio said no.

In a recent interview with Jake’s Takes, Farrell talked about this saying:

“Big studios make big decisions around such things as the presence of cigarettes in films. I fought valiantly for a cigar. At one stage I said, ‘I can have it unlit! Just let me have it unlit.’ They were like, ‘No.’ [As if] a bunch of 12-year-olds are going to start smoking Cuban cigars because [the Penguin is smoking cigars in a movie.]”

Look, I don’t smoke, and I honestly don’t care if The Penguin smokes or not. But it’s funny to me how after all these years that The Penguin has been a smoker, he’s always been seen with that cigarette, now all of a sudden there’s an issue with it. They don’t have a problem with Batman brutally beating the living hell out of people, though. Then, of course, they’re fine with villains with guns shooting people up and The Riddler being a serial killer. It just makes me laugh that they draw the line at smoking.

Emma Stone had to deal with a similar smoking ban while making Cruella. Disney put a ban on smoking in all of its films in as early as 2007, then extended the ban to all Lucasfilm, Marvel, and Pixar offerings in 2015.

In another interview with Collider,  Farrell revealed that he tested out the effectiveness of his Penguin look ahead of filming by going to a local Starbucks in character:

“The first day we tried the whole thing out, we took it for a drive — a spin, metaphorically speaking. We did it in Burbank. It took about six or eight hours. It was a team of 10 or 15 people. And it was really fun. I went into Starbucks and ordered myself a very un-Oswald drink, an oat milk latte with two stevia sweeteners. I got a couple of stares but only because it’s such an imposing look. [Designer] Mike Marino did so much of the work for me on this, so much of the heavy lifting.”

The Batman opens in theaters nationwide on March 4th.