Deirdre O'Connell dishes on her character's relationship with Penguin while chatting with THR at 'The Penguin' premiere in New York. Plus, she reveals it was easier playing opposite of Colin Farrell when he had the prosthetics on.
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00:00Talk to me about your relationship with the penguin because it's an interesting one.
00:05You play the penguin's mother, right?
00:07Yes, I'm his mom. Yep, yep.
00:10It's an interesting but complicated relationship, I would say.
00:13So talk to us as much as you can about it.
00:16I can talk very little about it except to say that it's a deep, deep love and a deep, deep hate.
00:21And both things are very earned.
00:24And Colin and I were just lucky to be hit by the acting stick
00:29that sometimes hits you where you're just like, oh, you.
00:32I can do anything to you. You can do anything to me.
00:34Once in a while you get that and we had that experience.
00:37It was like lightning in a bottle.
00:39So I feel like, yeah, we were able to really trust each other
00:43and really find, you know, all the juice that was in there.
00:48Well, Colin is insane in this role.
00:51He completely transforms into this character.
00:54What was it like kind of acting opposite him in this series?
00:57I think that it was easier for me to act opposite him when he had the full prosthetic
01:02than it would have been if somebody had said,
01:04oh, now you're just going to act with the beautiful, talented, kind, mesmerizing Colin Farrell.
01:11I think I was a little like, ah, how am I going to do that?
01:14As soon as he put on the full regalia, I was like, oh, you.
01:17I can do this with you.
01:18So I really think it would have been harder if it was switched the other way around.
01:23When I meet him in real life, I'm like, oh, right, right.
01:26Of course, I know you. I've been with you for a year.
01:28It's hard for him because he'll be like, Dee Dee, and I'll be like, oh, right.
01:32You really have to separate the two.
01:33Yeah, well, he's on the carpet tonight, too, so I'm sure it's like, whoo, I'm re-meeting this person again.
01:37Yeah, yeah, we've had a couple of days together now,
01:39so it's not quite as weird as it was for me and him both the first day when we saw each other
01:44because we really had no time together when he was just, you know, Colin.
01:50Well, a lot of people, you know, in recent days have been likening the show to The Sopranos.
01:54So what do you sort of make of those comparisons?
01:57Well, I love The Sopranos, personally.
01:59I thought it was one of the more amazing things I had ever seen, I remember, when it first came out.
02:04And so I feel like, yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it.
02:09I mean, I think we're lucky to get that comparison.
02:12Yeah, well, I know that, you know, there's a lot of supervillain stories that are out there right now.
02:17Well, what's one thing that people might be surprised to learn about Penguin Story?
02:23It's about a little boy who feels invisible and feels betrayed and feels—
02:34and he's finding his way through it.
02:36So in a funny way, it's that little boy is the constant in our show.
02:42And so the mother and he working their thing out, it's very central to the way that it works.
02:48But I feel like there's something about—you cannot find the lines.
02:55You cannot find the space between him and Oz.
02:58I've tried to for a year and you can't see it, so you can give up on that.
03:02But you are going to see him open his heart to playing this guy.