Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFranc Break Down Oz & Vic Relationship and Talk That Dark Finale

‘The Penguin’ recently concluded its run and it has received great feedback from both critics and audiences. A lot of the praise goes to Colin Farrell’s amazing performance as Oz Cobb and the strong supporting cast.

‘The Penguin’ finale drew 2.1 million U.S. viewers across HBO and Max, marking a new audience high. This is a 50% increase from its debut viewership, according to Warner Bros. Discovery, though premiere numbers were not disclosed.

The scene between Oz and Vic (you know which, I won’t describe it if there’s still someone who hasn’t watched it) was probably the highlight of the finale, which is one of the highest-rated IMDb episodes of all time.

Now, Matt Reeves and Lauren LeFrance had a chance to further talk about the finale and Oz & Vic’s relationship:

Matt Reeves: Colin Farrell was The Penguin in our movie, and it wasn’t just that we wanted to explore The Penguin – which we did – it was like it’s this version. And a giant piece of that is that Colin Farrell is incredible. He’s so good, and I think one of the places that Lauren took the scripts – which was great – was to understand his darkness, which is some really, really unspeakably dark things that he does. But Colin meets those so bravely.

He’s such a beautiful empathic actor that he doesn’t do a thing where, sometimes, you see something when someone’s playing a villain, and you can see they’re kind of indulging in the wickedness, and you’re just going “Oh yeah, I get it – that’s just a bad guy.”

But Colin is making sure that you understand where it’s coming from emotionally, so that you can see where that comes from in him, so that we can see the evil that’s potential in all of us. It’s very human, and I think that’s what was really thrilling for us – to be able to do this with Colin as that character and the whole cast, but really he was the linchpin to the whole thing for us.

Lauren LeFranc: It is challenging to try to figure out the balance between his humanity and bringing a level of empathy to him, which I think is really essential in creating characters and in deepening them, and yet, being always aware of the fact that he is not a good man – that he’s a very complicated individual and that I didn’t want anyone left – ideally – feeling that you can never control it; feeling gratified by his choices. That was very important to me.

For me, I think it’s a balance, and one thing that really came to mind is that anyone who is in a certain level of power gets to that place because people believe in them. Because they’re charming, because they bring you in. There’s always a magnetic quality to sort of the best, most powerful people in that regard. And with that can be darkness, and you might not really quite understand that yet.

It might be confusing, and somehow, that’s how you get some of these bigger personalities that have permeated our own culture and our own society. So, to me, it was about that level of honesty and making sure that I represented Oz in that way.

Reeves: You’re always looking for the lens through which to see something, right? And you’re trying to give the audience access, and it was important. That was part of Lauren’s conception when she came in to us, and she pitched what could happen in the series. The idea of this young kid [Victor Aguilar] who was in the wrong place at the wrong time stealing those rims from that Maserati, it was like, “Oh, that poor kid.” And I got very excited.

It’s sort of making me think as a director that the whole thing was like, “Oh, so then you’re just waiting for the moment where this kid’s going to die,” because he’s going to kill this kid. That’s what you have to do. This kid has come in here at the wrong time. He’s using him in this way that you know, “Oh, now [we’re] clear, this guy’s going to die.”

To see that character and have Oz be revealed to another person who’s going, “Who is this guy?” is like a great access point. I think having those kinds of characters in these kinds of movies where you have larger-than-life characters is a great tool. And that was a complete invention of Lauren.

LeFranc: I was really interested in a mentor-mentee relationship for Oz. I think in the criminal world, young men are brought up and sort of raised into it, and I think questions like why a kid like Victor would be interested in a world like this, and I always viewed their first interaction as a distorted, neat-cute. I did think when I first started to come up with Victor and this concept, “Why doesn’t Oz get a Robin? Batman gets one.”

That is sort of where I started: that Oz himself would say that he is deserving of a mentee and to shepherd somebody in. I also thought about the power dynamic: it’s no accident that Oz has taken a kid like Victor under his wing because he likes being seen as powerful, and he knows that someone like Victor sees him as such. It’s more distorted – the idea of traditionally a villainous character bringing someone into his world is just sort of a different take in my mind than a Batman and Robin dynamic.

CBR: Another character that viewers are introduced to in this series is Oswald’s mother, who lives in the suburbs of Gotham. Viewers learn right away that Oswald cares very much about his mom, and she’s also very emotionally abusive towards him. This seems to imply that a significant part of what pushed Oswald into the world of organized crime is a desire to earn his mother’s respect by working towards becoming a crime boss himself. What can you share about Oswald’s relationship with his mother and how this will impact his storyline moving forward, not just in this series, but also in The Batman Part II?

LeFranc: Oz and Francis have a very distorted, twisted relationship, verging on Oedipal at times. The thing that I was interested in is sort of dissecting where a man like Oz comes from and what really forms him, who shapes him. A character like Francis made a lot of sense to me to introduce and to really dig into more. When we first meet her in the first episode, it’s through the lens of Oz, and we really see her in that way.

We sort of empathize more with Oz, and so we can put our own notions about who Francis is or how she’s cruel into that. I hope by the end of the series, you start to have a deeper understanding of who Francis is and why she acts this way towards Oz , and what she herself is seeking. I was interested in this idea of a woman who, in her time, wasn’t paid that level of respect. She’s cunning and smart. What could she achieve if she was given the opportunity, and perhaps she wasn’t?

Putting all of that energy onto Oz, we know that, by the first episode, that his two brothers that he has have died, and we don’t know why. That’s a mystery in our show. But I think one thing that informed Oz and Francis’ relationship, to me, is this idea that if you have three children, and you lose two of those three, you end up putting all of your love and all of your intentions and all of your expectations onto one person. That can be burdensome, or it could be thrilling, depending on who that person is. And for Oz, I think it’s a bit of both.

CBR: One new thing that’s revealed about Oswald in the first episode is that he has a deformed right foot, which explains the waddle. Can you talk about what foot disability he has and how this potentially informs his self-image? How does he manage his self-image as a powerful man who built himself out of nothing?

LeFranc: For me, I thought it was very important to show his clubfoot in the first episode because in the movie, you’re not quite sure why he limps. And I wanted to firmly establish why and to show sort of the level of pain that he puts himself through but doesn’t speak about it.

This is nothing that we’ve ever put on camera, but in my mind, if you have a clubfoot now, there’s a surgery you can get and that often people do. For my reasoning as to why he doesn’t, he grew up with very little money. He didn’t come from anything, and his mother didn’t decide to spend the money on a surgery like that. Also, because she doesn’t see it as a disability. She doesn’t see it as a problem. She sees it as a way for him to strengthen himself.

Something I was conscious of are the sort of comic book tropes that have come before of those who are “other” – those who have disabilities, those who have scars on their face. They’re often easily depicted as the villain. I think it’s just an unfortunate thing in our comic book history , and I wanted to try to disrupt that as much as possible. For me, it was important to show that Oz, psychologically, is a damaged person.

Who he is inside is what informs the choices and the darker choices he makes. It’s not because he has a disability. It’s not based on the way that he looks. Like, of course, that’s an aspect of his character, but that’s not solely and predominantly why. That was something that was always very important to me.

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