On the red carpet of the Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala on Thursday night, where he was to be awarded for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin, Colin Farrell spilled a little tea about his spin-off to The Batman.

He told Variety‘s Marc Malkin that he never expected to get a chance to explore his character further in the series The Penguin, but he’s happy he will.

Farrell won praise for disappearing into the role of the low-level gangster dubbed Penguin, thanks to the amazing — and likely Oscar-bound — handiwork of makeup artists Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine, but the actor admitted he “wasn’t nearly getting to explore the character as much as I wanted to” in Matt Reeves‘ hit.

Farrell explained, “Because there was all this extraordinary work done by Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine and his team, and I just thought it was the tip of the iceberg, pardon the pun, that we were getting to do the six or seven scenes that we did in the film. I was grateful for them, but I wanted more.”

Of course, Penguin runs the seedy Iceberg Lounge in the film.

In fact, Farrell said the artists’ work served as the inspiration behind him pursuing a spin-off. “Honest to God, any thought I had about an extended series was to do with Mike Marino’s work. I just knew there was so much to do with it — age it up, age it down,” he enthused.

The Irish actor also revealed the series will get underway in March.

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