At the recent New York Comic Con, I and a few other reporters had the opportunity to sit down and talk with the cast of The Penguin. Each of them were wonderfully gracious and answered our questions to give more insight into what went into making the show. Below is our conversation with both Michael Kelly and Clancy Brown, who play Johnny Vitti and Salvatore Maroni respectively. You can see our coverage of the public panel here, as well as our interview with Cristin Milioti, who plays Sophia Falcone, showrunner Lauren LeFranc. Rhenzy Feliz, who plays Victor Aguilar, and Deirdre O’Connell, who plays Francis Cobb.

What was the scene in the script where you thought "this is the key to understanding my character. I know who this guy is."

Michael: God, I don't know. I feel like as an actor you have to do you have to do that before you go on set. I think everything that happened on set further solidified that, but I feel like you have to go into it with a pretty good understanding of like who the guy is. I keep saying when I put on that costume, then I put on my pinky ring, and I did all that and I look in the mirror, I was like, hey, there's fucking Johnny Vitti, let's go. You know, that's was it for me.

Clancy: Yeah, that's a good answer, that's absolutely right. You have to do all that work beforehand. Then after that it's kind of adjusting to everybody's rhythm and the director and or the where the camera is and where the shot is.

Clancy, you've been involved with DC Comics adaptations for a while now going all the way back to characters like Lex Luthor back in Justice League. Do you think it gives you a unique perspective, being involved in these different adaptations and interpretations of this world and these characters?

Clancy: You know, that's such a good question. It's sort of an evolution, isn't it? Every world is different, like Metropolis is different than Gotham, and Central City is different than Metropolis and Gotham. Gotham is probably the one that's probably the most developed over those years I would say. It's just kind of gotten more and more real, and the most unreal part of it is actually Batman himself. You know, a guy walking around that's just got two bat ears.

Michael: Sure, you say "Gotham", everyone knows Gotham. You can picture it in your head.

Clancy: It's New York if the 90s didn't happen.

Michael: Very true. That's a great way to put it: sans Bloomberg.

You're both known as genre actors, specifically nerd genre like sci-fi, fantasy, that kind of stuff. This show is very different because it is a comic book show, but it doesn't rely on typical comic book symbols and tropes, and I was just wondering like how you feel about that. When you have to explain "yeah, I'm on a Batman show but there's no Batman", how does that feel for you as an actor?

Michael: It is pretty cool, isn't it? I think it's really neat that they they took this and turned it on his head. I thought he was such a compelling part of that Batman story and they were like, "of course he deserves his own show" and then when you see his own show you're like wow it's grounded in such a reality; they hired such real actors. Nothing is written over the top and grandiose. I mean, Penguin is the craziest thing and he's very real, compared especially to how we've seen him portrayed in the past. I think it's really cool.

What were the challenges in exploring and expanding on your character after The Batman? Were there any discussions with the showrunner on what you wanted to play around with when you filmed in the show?

Michael: [Lauren LeFranc]'s a genius. You're talking about coming from the film to the TV series, I watched the film once and then didn't want to watch it again. I watched it when it came out, I didn't want to watch it again in preparation for this because you're making something completely different. I mean not completely different, but you're making something new. After I read the first script and I just I couldn't put it down, I was like "I'm in good hands". She has created this world. All you want to do as an actor is get in there and play in it. She created such a real, incredible world that you just want to go play.

For Clancy, you're playing Salvatore Maroni. What was it like having to play this iteration of this character within this universe? Is there a possibility of seeing more of him down the road?

Clancy: Oh, I would love that but I doubt it.

[At this point Clancy Brown had to leave to make a surprise panel appearance]

You represent the old guard of the crime families in Gotham that's really changing by the end of The Batman, and we're seeing a new wave throughout the show. Your character saw Oz Cobb come up from nothing; what does Johnny Vitti make of this weird upstart?

Michael: I don't think he has a lot of respect for him. I don't think that he thinks much of him. If you notice, he's one of the only people who calls him "Penguin" in the entire show, and I think that that says it all. My take on Johnny Vitti is that he's a businessman. That's why I chose to play with a slightly less accent, slightly less mafioso. I wanted him to be very grounded in a very real "I'm gonna drive the family business forward". But I have my old school ways, you know that that kind of thing. It was fun to play him.

What was more fun to play Johnny Vitti or Steve Lombard [in Man of Steel]?

Michael: That's tough. Because that world's fun as Hell, too. It was on such a massive scale, Superman. Zack Snyder and I had done Dawn of the Dead together. My big first role in a film and his first film, and then somebody called he was like, "hey you want to come do this movie?" I was like "yeah of course." He's like, "I don't know if you know, but I'm doing Superman", I was like, "yeah, I do know you're doing Superman". He's like "I want you to be in it" and I was like "great". The difference though is it's massive. You know, one's television one's film, and I just mean that on a scale, right? Like with the green screens and all the crazy shit that Superman was.

I love doing this. This was a lot of fun. Johnny Vitti was a lot of fun to jump in there with Colin and Cristin. That girl's so incredibly talented, and I was saying in one of the earlier interviews that, you jump in the boxing ring with those two individually, and you're sparring with the best and you're the fortunate beneficiary of being lifted up by sparring with the best. You fight with the best, you run with the best, you compete against the best or with the best, you become better.

It has to be very different from the green screens, doing something much more grounded with real set pieces.

Michael: That's that's what I meant: I don't think there is a better. You know, I can't say well, I like The Penguin better than I like Superman. I like this director better than that director. They're so different, right? Yes, I was more grounded on a set in The Penguin than I was on the set in a stage with a green screen and buildings crumbling all around me that weren't crumbling. That's a beautiful challenge as an actor.

Vitti's character is always on the periphery of the centers of power. Maybe if you want say, the power behind the throne. He's always on the outside, watching. Could you speak to how he's always influencing people from the outside and making it so that you're always playing off of these different power players in the show that maybe have more direct focus?

Michael: I think that's the businessman in him, right? He's doing what's right for the family business. He doesn't give a shit about Oz or about her, or about anything. He's doing what's right to drive the family business forward. In my opinion he's a businessman, and he is one of the only people on the show, I believe, that in the crime family is what you would call a true soldier. A lot of the other characters are going for power. He's not necessarily questing for more power. He's happy where he is and he can drive it forward that way.

[Spoilers for episode 5 below]

In the scene in the mausoleum, on top of all the tortures, you're giving this deeply heartfelt take about the relationship that you had with Sofia's mom. I gotta know, how much of that is you revealing your true self and how much is just, "I need to stay alive another minute"?

Michael: I played it as it was his true self. He did love her mother. He loved her, they were family, they were blood, and he loved her, and took great care of her. In my mind, he did have that car waiting, he did go against his boss, and he was going to get her the fuck out of there, and he was never gonna tell him about it, and she was just gonna go away, and that would have been that. I think that there's some things in that scene that he's doing to save his ass, but that moment he's like, "your mother, she was so beautiful", and how smitten the father was, it's all real. In my mind, it was all real.