Oscar-nominated Irish actor Colin Farrell’s portrayal of The Penguin has delivered a No.1 global streaming hit for studios, and a modern-day supervillain for the ages.

For the sake of art, drastically transforming into the DC Comic  character for three hours every morning – across more than 80 days of shooting – Farrell, 48, looks more Italian-American Sopranos gangster than fictionalised Oswald Cobblepot.

But casting the handsome The Banshees of Inisherin actor and using prosthetics and bodysuits to turn him ugly has paid off big time.

Soaring to the top of the ratings table both here and in the US, the series was described as an “ice cold hit” by Variety after opening to almost six million viewers on HBO in September.

This beat the final season of Succession‘s premiere.

It almost reached a perfect 10 on IMDb’s ratings for a TV show, and for Australian audiences watching on Binge, it has become the biggest new series on the streamer, hitting another new viewer milestone.

“Our viewers are obsessed with watching crime and The Penguin is ranking as No.1 for fans, being the most watched new series of the year,” Binge’s Fiona King said.

For Farrell, while “grateful” for the role, he says it “got in on me a little bit”: “By the end of it, I was bitching and moaning to anyone who would listen to me that I f–king wanted it to be finished”.

“But when I finished I was like, ‘I never want to put that f–king suit and that f–king head on again’,” he tells Total Film to discuss a possible second series.

Creating the ‘monster’

Transforming a Hollywood star with prosthetics is nothing new.

Al Pacino in Dick Tracy, Brendan Fraser in The Whale, Bradley Cooper in Maestro, and even Chris Hemsworth in this year’s Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga all sat in the chair for the sake of the art.

In The Penguin, Farrell (who grew up watching Burgess Meredith in the 1960s TV series and Danny DeVito in Batman Returns) got the scarred face, a receding hairline and a beak nose thanks to prosthetics make-up designer Mike Marino.

His story arc begins in the immediate aftermath of movie The Batman, in which The Riddler flooded Gotham City, killing thousands.

Series writer Lauren LeFranc tells Deadline the series reflects back the world we live in – who we take care of and who we condemn, and is less a traditional “rise to power” story, but more as “the origin of a monster”.

He’s a mid-level gangster, with a storyline mash-up drawing on The Godfather meets The Sopranos, and he needed to look the part while maintaining the essence of Farrell as the actor.

Colin Farrell becomes Oz in The Penguin. Photo: Binge/HBO

‘Scary’

Farrell, Marino and director Matt Reeves (also The Batman director) address the question of why one would take a Hollywood star and put him through such physical and time-consuming preparation to make him unrecognisable?

“What Mike did was transform him entirely. It actually scared me. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, but this has to be Colin. Are we going to be able to see Colin’s performance? He’s such a beautiful actor,” Reeves said in an IndieWire interview.

They said modern-day prosthetics preserved Farrell’s performance, and gave him a full range of expressions.

“The expressive parts of this are Colin. There’s no impediment physically to those things that create emotion, which is what you see in his face,” Reeves said.

“It was as if another presence was born, something that didn’t exist before was released, somehow being freed from his physicality and seeing himself as this other person.”

LeFranc agrees.

“He’s such a soulful actor who can do comedy and drama, and so you still have that quality inside of Oz,” she said.

“I understand the question of why wouldn’t you just cast someone who you want to look like Oz … after this experience and seeing what Colin can do, I realised Oz would be an inherently different character if he was not played by someone as talented and specific as Colin.

“He’s a really emotional, incredible actor, and Colin’s charm is really so much a part of Oz.

“I actually see Colin a lot through Oz now.”