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After Warner Bros. canned the Batgirl movie, Colin Farrell was worried The Penguin would get a similar treatment
The Hollywood Strikes and the sad fate of Batgirl made the actor worry Warner Bros. would never make The Penguin, but here we are
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It might be hard to imagine today, but this time two years ago, Hollywood was basically at a standstill due to a pair of long-running strikes. Even actors like Colin Farrell, who is beyond established in the TV and film industry, felt a touch of anxiety about his future. While waiting for The Penguin to go into production, the combination of the Hollywood strikes and Warner Bros.' cancellation of their completed Batgirl movie made him doubt the movie would ever get made.
After he was nominated for Best Lead Limited or Anthology Series Actor in this year's Emmy Awards, Colin Farrell was asked if there was ever a time when he didn’t think the show would be made. “Yeah, a couple, like during the strike,” he admitted. “And in a world where they can make a Batgirl film and then just can it. I don’t understand it – the debits and credits and ledgers and, fucking, all that stuff – but they can decide it's economically advantageous to just shelve a $90 million film that people have put so much effort into it. You better believe it. When we were in the middle of the strike, I remember saying to my sister, ‘I don’t know if we’re gonna go back to this. I don’t know if we’re gonna finish it.’ I did get nervous.”
Of course, The Penguin did end up getting made and was surprisingly good, earning Farrell and the rest of the show the second most Emmy nominations of any series this year, including lead actor and lead actress nods for both Farrell and Cristin Milioti. The series is also nominated for Best Limited or Anthology Series, as well as in categories surrounding casting, costuming, and more.
Not bad for a show he once thought would never actually get made.
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