Colin Farrellhas so much range he might as well exist in different time zones. The actor has a newseries on Apple TV+,Sugar, premiering April 5 in which he plays a mysterious, deeply compassionate private detective looking for a missing rich girl in Los Angeles. Like a gentler Dana Andrews or Glenn Ford, he’s incredibly suave, handsome, and alone. Compare that to the recently released trailer forThe Penguinon Max, in which he plays the legendary Oswald Cobblepot from the Batman franchise. There, padded in prosthetics and glistening with sweat, he’s a gigantic force of criminality and corruption, snarling and angry.
While discussingSugar, Farrell generously took the time to muse over which actor, character, or movie is his favoritein the whole Batman pantheon. “My favorite Batman actors or movie. I mean, Heath.Heath takes it, you know,” Farrell shrugged with a smile, then elaborated:
“I mean, I don’t want to sit on the fence, but I’ve enjoyed so many of them.I love Jack [Nicholson] as well as the Joker. And these characters of lore are so well-designed initially that they just withstand. It was like, Christian Bale was asked a question, I saw once, about the new Batman that was coming and about Robert [Pattinson] playing Batman, and Christian said something along the lines of, and I paraphrase, that these characters, they survive and they invite multiple interpretations.”
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“And I love Danny [DeVito] of course, as the Penguin.I grew up watching Tim Burton’s films,” continued Farrell. “But I go back with the show as well, to Adam West and Burgess Meredith, the first Penguin I ever saw. You know, there are so many of them, who my favorite is, I don’t know.I have a soft spot for Michael Keatonbecause I was like, maybe 10 or 11 or 12 when I saw that, and I was just obsessed with it, you know?”
These superhero characters are the Greek Gods of our time, and like them, Farrell said, “They’re aspirational and questionable.”
Sugar Is Not Your Average Private Detective Show
There have been a couple of great variations on the classic private eye mythos in the past couple of years, namelyMonsieur SpadeandPoker Face, which both do very different things with the genre. But the most original to come around in quite some time isSugar, and you could’ve guessed that if you’re familiar with its creator and head writer, Mark Protosevich. He wrote the mind-bending surrealist crime thrillerThe Cell, not to mention the very successful adaptation,I Am Legend. He’s interested in solitude and the way we create meaning in our lives, andSugarexcels on that front.
It’s a great mystery with an excellent cast, including Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Amy Ryan, Anna Gunn, Eric Lange, Dennis Boutsikaris, Nate Corddry, and more, along with Farrell in one of his greatest performances.It’s a strange love letter to cinema and a masterful deconstruction of film noir and private detective lore, in which the human condition is the ultimate mystery. Check it out on Apple TV+ when it premieres April 5. Check out the trailer below:
