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Despite being set in the same world as The Batman, HBO’s The Penguin doesn’t like to flaunt its connections to the Matt Reeves film. It utilizes a few characters from the movie, including Carmine Falcone, but John Turturro doesn’t reprise his role, and he wants the world to know why.
In The Batman, Colin Farrell’s Oz works directly under Carmine until the time of his death, and with the villain’s solo series picking up right after that, it makes sense that the mobster and his family have major roles. Sofia has the biggest part to play, being the one to stand up against Oz after catching wind of his schemes. Despite his death, however, Carmine also appears in a flashback, but Mark Strong takes on the role, not Turturro.
Now, a lot of viewers assumed that Turturro was busy or because the flashback was set years prior, the powers that be wanted a younger face. It turns out the veteran actor had his own reasons for not coming back, though, and they had to do with the content of the show. “I did what I wanted to with the role,” he told Variety. “In the show, there was a lot of violence towards women, and that’s not my thing.”
Related: The Penguin: Who Is Magpie in the Comics?
It’s noble that Turturro stood up for what he believed in, but it shouldn’t have been all that surprising that his role in The Penguin featured plenty of violence. After all, Carmine is quick to attack Zoë Kravitz’s Selina Kyle after she confronts him in The Batman. He’s a violent man, and The Penguin only does more to prove that.
Once The Penguin wraps, that will likely be all she wrote for Carmine in BatVerse projects, but if he does return, it’s safe to say that Strong will be wearing the mustache, not Turturro
The Penguin is streaming now on Max.