Colin Farrell’s Penguin Banned From Smoking in ‘The Batman’: ‘I Fought Valiantly for a Cigar’

variety.com:

Zack Sharf The Penguin is often depicted in comic books with his trademark top hat, monocle and cigarette, but none of these signatures are sported by Colin Farrell in the upcoming “The Batman.” The film takes place before Oswald Cobblepot’s full transformation into the villainous Penguin.

However, Farrell recently told “Jake’s Takes” that he “fought valiantly” for his pre-Penguin Oswald to smoke in “The Batman.” The studio turned down such a request.“Big studios make big decisions around such things as the presence of cigarettes in films,” Farrell said. “I fought valiantly for a cigar.

At one stage I said, ‘I can have it unlit! Just let me have it unlit.’ They were like, ‘No.’ [As if] a bunch of 12-year-olds are going to start smoking Cuban cigars because [the Penguin is smoking cigars in a movie.]” Emma Stone had to deal with a similar smoking ban while making “Cruella.” Disney put a ban on smoking in all of its films in as early as 2007, then extended the ban to all Lucasfilm, Marvel and Pixar offerings in 2015.“That is not allowed in 2021,” Stone told The New York Times last year after the publication noted that her iteration of Cruella is a non-smoker. “We are not allowed to smoke onscreen in a Disney film.

It was difficult to not have that cigarette holder…I was so excited to have that green plume of smoke in there, but it was not possible.