Robin Lord Taylor Interview with Esquire.Com 

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And how a bottle cap helped him get into the skin of a young Oswald Cobblepot

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, the new Batman origin story series that premiered last night on Fox, reveals a world before the caped superhero, when the city\'s villains are still young and mostly powerless. The standout performance of the first episode was delivered by Robin Lord Taylor, a New York City actor whose portrayal of Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin, is disarming and multilayered. There are a lot of possibilities for the character, which was memorably embodied by Danny DeVito in

, and Taylor has really gotten inside Cobblepot\'s skin. We spoke with him about how he went from a largely unknown actor with small roles on

ESQUIRE.COM: So this must be a pretty crazy time for you.

ROBIN LORD TAYLOR: Oh my God, to say the least. It\'s just the wildest thing. It\'s the biggest ride I\'ve ever been on in my life.

RLT: When I auditioned I didn\'t know what I was auditioning for until the very last second. They didn\'t give us a script and the scene I auditioned with was a fake scene with fake names. The night before I went in my agent gave me the tip-off and was like, "Oh, by the way this is the Penguin in the origin story of Batman." I was like, "Okay..." But I\'ve auditioned for big things before and you learn to take things as they come and give everything 100 percent no matter what. So I did. I did it literally once and [the casting director] turned off the camera and was like, "That was fantastic. We\'ll be in touch." And then they flew me out to test for the show. I think my blood pressure was really high those couple of weeks. Just trying to prepare yourself for disappointment. And then I got it!

ESQ: What was your response the moment you found out?

RLT: I got a call from two of my agents both on the line. They called and told me and I was in my hotel room in L.A. I screamed. And then I jumped around. At that moment there was a knock on my door because my room service had shown up. This poor woman. I was just sweating and crying and hyperventilating. I was trying to figure out the tip and I couldn\'t do math and the numbers were moving in front of my eyes. It was so weird that I just looked at the room service lady and I was like, "I just booked a show!" Before I even told my mom I got to share this lovely moment with this woman who works at the Sheridan at Universal.

RLT: I started going back to the comics. I had seen the Adam West TV show a million times and I had seen

a million times when I was a kid. I was really aware of previous narratives and of Danny DeVito\'s performance. Those were different iterations and I knew we were harkening to the actual comic books. I wasn\'t as much of a comic book kid, although I had some of the Batman comics. So I did some research and I had the pleasure of meeting Geoff Johns, the head of DC Comics. I asked him if he knew of any titles that would make sense for me to read. He was like, "Just give me your address." Two days later I got comics from Geoff Johns that actually went back and talked about the Penguin\'s childhood and what he went through as a kid being strange-looking with strange interests, and how he was bullied in prep school. Things that really helped solidify the character as a person as opposed to an archetype.

"I put a bottle cap in my shoe to remind me of the pain that he feels."

ESQ: Do you think your portrayal of Oswald Cobblepot will give new insight into the character that fans maybe haven\'t seen before?

RLT: I really think so. That\'s the general goal for the show as a whole and for everyone\'s characters. We\'re taking this fantastic world and trying to make it something that everyone can identity with. That\'s definitely the goal for me — bringing the realistic aspect to these people.

ESQ: Are you doing anything specific physically to get you into character?

RLT: In terms of his physical deformities and the way he walks, I think it\'s so genius that that\'s something we see happen to him at the hands of Fish Mooney. The experience he goes through is real pain. I knew that we were going to have a waddle-ish aspect to his walk. Knowing that it was an actual thing that happened to him made it so much more real to me. So I put a bottle cap in my shoe. It\'s a Stella Adler trick. It\'s not painful or anything, but it\'s something to remind me of the pain that he feels. It\'s a little thing that I feel every step I take that brings it together and makes the experience real for me, which hopefully translates to the screen.

ESQ: He\'s pretty skinny. Are we going to see him fatten up over the course of the show?

RLT: I mean, I think so. Discovering these characters, we\'re teasing out all the accents of their personalities that inform who they become in the future. In the pilot, in the final scene, he kills the fisherman for a sandwich. We\'re establishing his relationship with food. It comes back through as we go along. It\'s something that he deals with. We\'ll see. Personally I would like to stay trim and cute, but I\'ll be willing to spend more time in the makeup chair if that\'s what it comes to.

"He learns how he\'s going to play the game and learns his true lust for power. And he really will stop at nothing to achieve that."

RLT: His end game is to not be powerless anymore. He\'s spent his whole life being picked on. His ambition is so much greater than anybody knows. Through his mistakes in the pilot he learns how he\'s going to play the game and learns his true lust for power. And he really will stop at nothing to achieve that.

ESQ: Where will this lust for power take him over the course of this season?

RLT: I\'m not allowed to say but I also have no idea. We get the scripts just a couple days before we start the episodes. I\'m sure I could sit down with [our showrunner] and say, "Tell me what\'s going to happen." But I don\'t because in a way his journey is my journey as well. What he\'s discovering is what I\'m discovering. It really helps my performance. I don\'t want to know where it\'s going — I just want to be there on the ride and make it as visceral of an experience as it can be.

ESQ: At the end of last night\'s episode Oswald was told to leave Gotham and not return. Obviously that\'s not going to happen, right?

RLT: Right. He knows nothing but Gotham City. That\'s his home. He wants to play in the big leagues and nothing can stop him. And there\'s no better league than Gotham.

ESQ: So I have to ask, are you worried at all about being compared to Danny DeVito?

RLT: Oh please. If people want to compare me to Danny DeVito that\'s the biggest gift there is. I think Danny DeVito is fantastic. And again, the way his character was portrayed and what we\'re going for here... There\'s a divergence there. It\'s different. There are major differences. But at the same time I would love it. I\'m such a fan of his. The fact that Danny could bring so much charisma and fun to such a grotesque, disgusting character is something I could only dream to come within a mile of.

RLT: I haven\'t. I\'m one degree away. Carol Kane plays my mom on

and we\'ve become close. We were sitting in her dressing room and running lines and she said, "You know who I had dinner with last night? I had dinner with Danny and I told him all about you and I told him I was playing your mother. He got the hugest kick out of it and he\'s so excited about it." I was like, "Uggh, can I just meet him and hang out with him and get drunk on Limoncello with him?" I hope some day.

ESQ: Aren\'t you best friends with Billy Eichner? Can\'t he orchestrate a meeting of the Penguins on

RLT: Wow. That\'s an excellent idea. I\'m going to have to credit you for that. I\'m going to call him after this.

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