The Penguin has managed to keep fans on their toes with surprise after surprise. Yet, perhaps nothing was more surprising than the debut of the obscure Batman villain Magpie in episode 4 “Cent’Anni”. Heroic Hollywood sat down with Marié Botha, the actress behind the enigmatic inmate, to break down her role in the series. Check out our full interview below.
Comic book projects are very secretive these days. What did you actually know about the role before auditioning?
For the initial audition, not much at all. They changed the name, they called her Emma. And I basically had to nitpick in the sides that they gave me- the script that I got to figure out ‘Okay, we can deduce that she’s in a prison. It’s in the Batman universe, so we’re gonna go with Arkham Asylum’ and then maybe okay yes. She is a villain. Criminally insane. So let’s maybe draw from each Batman universe and cobble together whoever we think this person is.
But then during the callback, they told me who she was so I had a bit of time to prep and research a little bit more about Magpie throughout the years in the DC comic book universe, which was great. That’s basically all I knew.
Were you a big Batman fan at all before getting the audition?
Not the comic books as much, but the movies, yes. I’ve loved them and I was a huge fan of The Dark Knight trilogy and then I loved Jack Nicholson’s Joker and Tim Burton’s Batman in ’89. So yeah I loved the world already, and obviously I loved Matt Reeves’ take on it. And was very excited to get an audition for this.
What I love about this take is how gritty and how real it is and how you really feel, especially from The Penguin’s point of view, like you’re in the streets with him. And I think in a few interviews Matt [Reeves] and Craig Zobel and Lauren LeFranc have said that for his point-of-view they did sort of look into shooting with shots from below and finding locations under bridgeways and in alleys, which was great. And I love how specific he gets and she gets with each and every character, which is awesome.
Did you base your performance on the comics at all, or did you trust the director to guide the vision?
So Helen Shaver, who was the director of my episode, is so incredible. And she’s an actor’s director, she was an actress herself, and so she already had a lot of ideas herself that were epic. And so I did draw a lot from the comics. When I got the part, I immediately ordered all of the Magpie comics off of eBay and really created a nice thick sheet of given circumstances and cold hard facts about her, and then I sort of colored in the blanks and drew from my favorite villains, not just in this universe, but Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry Potter.
I would draw and create my own version of her, which was sweet because we haven’t seen iterations of Magpie a lot throughout the projects that have been made about the DC comic books. With Helen and myself and even Cristin [Milioti’s] input and what Cristin needed from the character, I think we were able to create something really magical and a really cool character that I would love to explore more if there is ever that opportunity. So it was a melting pot of all of that.
Your character has a lot of interactions with Cristin Milioti’s Sofia Falcone. What was it like working with her?
Oh, she was so dialed! Her work on this character was so complex and layered. It was so funny because she would come into the makeup trailer in the morning and she’s just the nicest, friendliest, person. And then you snap into it on set and it was as if something came over her when she became Sofia.
It was such a treat to work with someone as experienced and talented as she is because I brought what I had put together and she brought her force of nature that she put together and inside of that we were able to just play off of each other. And it’s so rare to have a moment like that, especially for someone like me who’s early on in my career to be able to go head-to-head or toe-to-toe as they say with someone as wonderful and revered as [Milioti]. It was an an incredible, incredible gift.
Is there any specific moment where the character of Magpie really clicked with you?
So happy you asked me that question because there’s such a visceral moment that I think about so much. It was on the first day when we first filmed the first scene when they first met through the little rivet hole. We had done some of Sofia’s shots and then it got to the point where they were doing the shot of just seeing my mouth and my eyes and stuff through the little hole.
So they had the camera on one side of the hole, the wall, and then I was standing on one of the beds in the cell and talking through. And the director, Helen, just allowed me to play. And she’s really good at pushing you as an actor to get to where she needs you to go without obviously traumatizing you, but she was also enacting noises and sounds of Arkham as the tape was rolling.
And I just started, as we were doing it over and over again, I felt — I almost blacked out in a way because I felt like I was really stepping into this character and her desperation to reach Sofia and become friends and to find the shiny thing and to almost try and get through that tiny little hole herself. And you know it helped so much with the makeup, the prosthetics, the scars. I asked them to really dirty up my fingernails and teeth and it felt amazing to do that.
With your career, do you see yourself sticking to more of these crime dramas or more of the crazier elements that were introduced in The Penguin?
I am a little bit all over the show in terms of what I’d like to explore in my career. I have been so lucky to get to do this part and be in this universe. I’m a huge fantasy fan. Rings of Power, that’s now on Amazon Prime, that’s something I would love to explore. The Harry Potter series — Bellatrix Lestrange is my dream role.
And also period pieces. I love putting on a corset! If I could put on a corset and ride a horse and be a badass woman in a period piece that would be another dream of mine. I think that what I’m saying is I like to look at myself as a character actor, and I would want to be able to transform completely in every role that I play.
What draws you to strange characters?
I think what draws me to them is sort of figuring out the journey of how they got there. I think I am so fascinated by the human condition and how fragile the human psyche is, especially at a young age when you’re growing up. And seeing certain events happen to someone and how they turn out because of those.
I think Magpie’s story – I think for every character like this it’s very different. For Magpie specifically, the information that we have is she grew up, she had this stepmother who she hates. Who calls her Margeret. And so that in it of itself is something that happened to her followed by information in the comic books of when she was really bullied at school and called Magpie because she liked shiny things.
And what that does to your growth as a person how that maybe stunts it a little bit and how that turns her into this kind of little girl persona but with a lot of anger underneath that undercuts her performance. She’s trying to keep it in. That’s like her specifically. So I think I’m attracted to, it might seem like I’m attracted to these characters as a whole — and I am — but what I’m most interested in is what makes them unique and specific.
Would you be interested in doing a special presentation going deeper into Magpie’s past?
That would be the biggest gift to me. I would just love that. Because there’s so much, right? In all of these characters’ past. We’re so lucky to get to see Oz now and Sofia in a deeper way. And I think these characters are all so layered and so complex and so interesting and every backstory can be so developed and explored. And the fans love it! I think everybody loves a new Batman show and a new Batman character, so yeah! If that ever came across my path I would grab it with both hands. I would be thrilled.
