The Penguin Makeup Designer on How He’d Create Realistic Versions of ‘Weird’ Villains in a Matt Reeves Batman Sequel

While it’s not yet known which villains will appear in The Batman 2 – save for the return of Colin Farrell’s Penguin, but more on that in a bit – the makeup designer who brought both Penguin and Barry Keoghan’s Joker to the big screen in The Batman shared his thoughts with IGN about how realistic versions of “weird” characters like Clayface or Two-Face could be brought to life within Matt Reeves’ Batman Epic Crime Saga.

While there have been several incarnations of Clayface (who IGN ranked 73rd on its list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains), the character’s clay-like, grotesque physical appearance and ability to shapeshift have largely remained consistent since the first Clayface, Basil Karlo, appeared in 1940. While such a fantastical ability and countenance may not seem to lend itself to the more grounded approach taken by The Batman and HBO’s The Penguin, Mike Marino, the artist who transformed Colin Farrell into the wholly different-looking Oz Cobb, has some ideas of how to do it citing natural occurring elements.

“Since I collect all this stuff, there are so many strange things that happen in nature,” Marino said. “There’s so many people that have really weird things that happen to them, to their skin, to their appearance, and their faces swell and they’re missing pieces of their face and all of these things that happen, which you would think, if you really saw, what a real dead body looked like, you wouldn’t believe that it’s real. You’d be like, that looks fake. That’s wrong. But it’s real.”

Marino added, “There’s so many outstanding colors that come out of nature and strange textures and bubbles and all this crazy stuff that there’s so much room to base a weird character like Clayface or Two-Face, and keep it super real and reference that’s out there. It could be completely based in reality. So there’s so many things to draw from. So I think that there’s really an opportunity to do something new and unique for other characters.”

“I do believe as of now, Colin is in the next Batman [movie], so I think that we will be seeing Penguin in that. I can’t guarantee you. Don’t take my word for it. I would ask Matt Reeves, but I think there’s room for other things,” Marino said. “That’s a Matt question. I’m here for it. If he wants me to do that and to be involved, I’m game.”

Reeves, who directed The Batman and is co-writing and directing its 2026 sequel, confirmed to IGN that Farrell’s Penguin will indeed be back albeit as the version he evolves into in his HBO spin-off.

“He’ll be entering into the film, and it’s going to be another detective story. It’s going to be another crime mystery,” Reeves said. “And (Penguin) is a piece of it, for sure, but there is more to it, which we can’t reveal to you, of course, because then we would have to kill you.”

Oz’s self-consciousness about his place within society and the criminal underworld will still factor into his characterization in his future screen appearances. As Reeves put it, “I think the thing about Oz is that he’s status conscious, even in the first movie. He wants to be revered. And then that was what was so beautiful about what Lauren [LeFranc, the showrunner of The Penguin] did in kind of letting you into the lens of that. When he talks to Alberto [Falcone] about Rex Calabrese, that’s him at his most vulnerable. He’s saying, ‘Yeah, I want people to look at me like I’m somebody.’ And he’s never going to quite get what he wants, because nothing will fill that. He’ll never feel like he’s somebody. He’ll always feel like he’s this broken person. And so, that, of course, is going to continue as we move forward with his character.”

“I would say that the difference is that he’s been able to claw at some of it. He has achieved some status, and we see people in real life who are like that, who somehow have taken on the cloak of being, I don’t know, if not more respectable, at least getting the respect that comes with the fact that they’ve achieved some success. And you look at them, and you go, God, look at that person. And you realize that there’s something about the drive that gets them there. It wasn’t that they got there through some sort of quality of character, but it had to do with an obsessive need. And that need will continue, and it’s going to play out in the next movie, for sure, as a component.”

But would an ambitious gangster like Oz Cobb ever ally himself with someone like Paul Dano’s Riddler, whom he referred to as as a “madman” in the trailer for The Penguin?

As producer Dylan Clark sees it, “I think (Oz’s) wants and needs [are] in that blind ambition way, to be revered. I think he does look at other characters like the Riddler, and he looks down on people like that. Those guys’ needs are different. That’s a psychological need and a compulsion. He just has to do this thing that he’s not in charge of. And it starts because of the arrival of Batman.”

While it doesn’t seem like there will be a Batman ‘66-style villains team-up in the cards, Reeves explained that “if there were ever a way for them to team up, it would be for some completely mercenary reason. If he thought there was a way to, I would say, spin something. Oz is very aware of the spin. He’s super smart. That’s one of the things he does nicely that Lauren wrote so nicely. He’s like going, this is what it looks like. And you’re like, it actually isn’t what it looks like, but you’re saying it can be what it looks like. Got it. And he’s very wily that way. So any kind of team up, which I’m not confirming at all, or any kind of use of that or those kind of crosses would come through that lens. Oz is going to remain Oz. Let’s put it that way.”

For more on the new Batman spin-off series, here are 7 things to know about The Penguin and be sure to read our The Penguin review.

The Penguin debuts on HBO on September 19. The Batman 2 opens in theaters October 2, 2026.