Whenever we see that an actor or filmmaker has left a TV show or film, there is always a reason given. Most of the time, we see the dreaded “scheduling conflict” or something along those lines. And believe it or not, a lot of the time when they talk about scheduling not working, they’re typically hiding a deeper reason. That appears to be the case when it comes to the recasting of Carmine Falcone in “The Penguin.”
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According to a new interview with Variety, John Turturro talked about his role in “The Batman” as Carmine Falcone, and he also gave a reason why he didn’t show up in the TV spinoff, “The Penguin.” Originally, when showrunner Lauren LeFranc talked about why Turturro didn’t return, she chalked it up to a scheduling conflict and quickly mentioned how they love being able to replace him with Mark Strong as Falcone. Well, as said above, it appears there’s actually another reason why Turturro didn’t come back to reprise his role.
“I did what I wanted to with the role,” Turturro said. “In the show, there was a lot of violence towards women, and that’s not my thing.”
Obviously, when talking about a new show, you want to keep everything positive and you don’t want to give readers any reason why they wouldn’t want to watch it. So, you can’t blame LeFranc for saying it was a scheduling conflict because telling the truth—that Turturro thought there was too much violence against women—might turn off potential viewers. I mean, no one wants to watch a show with violence against women, right?
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It is unfortunate that Turturro didn’t return. Though he says he did all he wanted with the character, it would have been nice to see him come back for “The Penguin.” While the season is still going on and might shit the bed eventually, “The Penguin” is a huge hit for HBO and Max and actually has earned rave reviews from fans. But hey, you can do a lot worse than Mark Strong as a replacement, right?
“The Penguin” is now available on Max, minus John Turturro.