Shohreh Aghdashloo chats with THR at 'The Penguin' premiere in New York and she shares the story of when she first saw Colin Farrell in full prosthetics. Plus, she reacts to the show being compared to 'The Sopranos.'
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00:00When you play Nadia Moroni, can you explain her relationship to Penguin?
00:04Well, she was hoping that she's not going to have any relationship with the Penguin,
00:10but when her husband, who is a mob, goes to the prison, she needs to get in and act on behalf of
00:16her husband and starts working with this creature, I should say, and I just loved working with Colin
00:27Anders. Well, he fully transforms into this character. What was your first thought when
00:34he first walked out on set in full prosthetics, in full costume? Because he also stayed in that
00:38character throughout set, I heard. Well, to be honest with you, I didn't meet him on the set.
00:44I went for a fitting, and then I'm in the middle of the hallway. I see this man, huge man,
00:52limping, coming toward me, and he says, hi, and he leaves, and I told my assistant, I said,
00:58who is that? And she goes, that's Colin. And I'm like, nah, nah, unbelievable. But to tell you
01:08the truth, it's not just the makeup and the prosthetic. He is an under-the-skin actor.
01:15He doesn't act it out. He lives it. The combination of both is amazing. It was definitely beautiful
01:24to see as well, and I know there's a lot of supervillain stories out there,
01:29but what makes the penguin story so special and important to tell? Believe it or not,
01:35after all these decades, we still don't know who the penguin is. Never paid any attention,
01:42thought or attention. We have heard many versions, like his parents destroy him in a river.
01:49His parents left him on the side of the road, but never paid attention. When they came to me
01:56with the idea, I said, I love the idea, because I, for one, would love to know who this penguin is,
02:02and his portrayal in this series is very human-like, and I love the journey of how,
02:12under what kind of circumstances, a human being turns into a creature.
02:19Well, some people have been likening this story to The Sopranos, so what do you kind of make of
02:24those comparisons that have been thrown out there recently? They have all the rights to do that,
02:28because mob stories are mob stories, but each and every one of them have their own ingredients.
02:35Like Shakespeare's plays, each and every one of them have their own ingredients. They are, yes,
02:42they're mobs, but just like Penguin, where are they coming from? Who are they? What kind of
02:49background? What happened? And how do you think the events of this story sets things up for the
02:56Batman sequel? It would just be perfect. It would be a great kind of platform for now Batman to come
03:08up, and now we have enough information about both, and then we can watch it.