Fresh off Michael Keaton's return as Batman in The Flash, his former co-star Danny DeVito has said he'll also happily come back. The actor who played The Penguin in Tim Burton's Batman Returns back in 1992 opens up about the role to SFX magazine in our upcoming issue.
"I would definitely consider doing it, yeah," DeVito tells SFX about the potential of appearing in the DC multiverse. "Batman Returns was a great part, it was operatic. You could just pull out all the stops. There were so many motivating things, so many things churning up inside of him. Being the odd man out – the odd bird out – brought the character out of me. It was an emotional experience for me because I felt it was an opportunity of a lifetime to play Oswald Cobblepot with Tim’s vision and design. Tim is a genius to me."
When SFX speaks to the actor ahead of his upcoming movie Haunted Mansion, he shows us just how important The Penguin part was to him too. "I have something you’re gonna really like, just stay right where you are. Don’t move," he says before getting up, stepping to his right and off camera from our Zoom conversation. "Don’t move!" his voice floats from somewhere nearby. "Stay where you are. Now – concentrate on the screen. Ready?"
A black and white-patterned spinning umbrella appears in shot, filling the screen. "Do you know what that is?" the disconnected voice asks from behind. What else could it be? "That is the original Penguin’s umbrella," DeVito says proudly, emerging from behind it. "Ladies and gentlemen, watch his mind be blown…" It is, we delight in saying, incredible that not only does he own it, but it’s right to hand. DeVito immediately adopts his Oswald Cobblepot voice and peers into the camera. "Yeah, it’s here. It’s here! It’s mine! What? You got a problem with that?"
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Next up for DeVito is Haunted Mansion, the hugely anticipated adaptation of the Walt Disney theme park attraction. The actor plays Bruce, a university professor who’s "very much into the occult" and called in to offer his expertise. While DeVito won't give too much away, he teases: "The only way to solve the problem is to know exactly the history of the mansion."
Haunted Mansion is released on July 28 in the US and on August 11 in the UK. That's just a snippet of our interview, available in the latest issue of SFX Magazine, which features Good Omens season 2 on the cover and is available on newsstands from Wednesday, July 12. For even more from SFX, sign up to the newsletter, sending all the latest exclusives straight to your inbox.
