Spoiler alert: This piece discusses the finale of The Penguin.
Rhenzy Feliz didn’t grow up the biggest comic-book fan; outside of video games, he only really became exposed to the superhero world via Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, which were “the coolest thing on the planet” to him. But following his TV debut in the underrated Hulu dramedy Casual, Feliz’s biggest opportunities on the small screen have come in the form of shows set in sprawling superhero worlds: Marvel’s Runaways and now The Penguin on HBO.
In a cast of ruthless mob bosses and psychopathic killers, Feliz’s character stands out: a soft-eyed 17-year-old with a stutter who’s still mourning the family he lost in a flood (thanks to the Riddler in the 2022 film The Batman, which also first introduced Colin Farrell’s iteration of the Penguin to this cinematic world). But over the course of eight episodes, we’ve seen the influence of Farrell’s aspiring criminal kingpin Oz Cobb transform Victor Aguilar into a more confident and quick-thinking version of himself—and a more dangerous one, for better or worse.
TIME spoke with Feliz about acting opposite Farrell, perfecting Vic’s stutter, and filming that finale scene this whole season has been building up to.
TIME: Colin Farrell is the main actor you play off on the show. How did you develop the chemistry between your characters?
Feliz: I think Colin and I got lucky. He and I work in a pretty similar way. Victor and Oz are meeting each other on camera for the first time as well, and their relationship is growing, and that really resembled what me and Colin were going through: we met each other on set and our relationship grew as the show went on. As he and I got closer, so did Vic and Oz, and we got to play off that and use that same feeling as real life.
Since Colin was wearing prosthetics all the time during filming, did it feel like you were speaking to somebody else when you spoke off set?
I mostly got to know him as Oz. He would mostly use this hybrid accent. Even when he broke out into the Irish accent, it had little glimpses of Oz in it. I’ve spoken to Colin’s face maybe less than seven times, six times. Maybe now it’d be eight or nine. Whenever I speak to Colin now, he looks at me like we know each other, and we do, but I feel like I’m not looking at the guy that I know. I didn’t totally get it until they sent me the episodes. When I saw Oz for the first time on camera, it kind of hit me, and I was like, “Oh my god, there’s the guy I’ve been spending months and months and months with. I’ve missed this guy.” It’s a weird thing to put into words.
He really is unrecognizable, especially with the accent.
Even apart from the accent and the prosthetics—even down to his mannerisms, the way he moves his face. If Colin’s confused, he’ll make a different face than if Oz is confused. I got to see it up close, and I was in awe the entire time, but seeing it as an audience member is when I really got to take it all in.
What was it like working with a fluency consultant on Vic’s stutter?
That was what I was most worried about: trying to do the stutter in a thoughtful, honest way. I felt like maybe people would be upset about it. But thankfully, the response I’ve gotten has been overwhelmingly positive. I worked with this fluency consultant, Marc Winski, and he himself has a stutter. He was such an open book. One of the things that was most useful wasn’t necessarily the technical aspects: the repetitions or the blocks or how my mouth is supposed to move. It was more the psychological aspect of what’s going on inside your mind.
Did you consciously shift the stutter as the show went on?
The stutter does change throughout the show, but not because he gets more confident. That’s a misconception: for some people it goes away as you get older, and for some people, it doesn’t. Victor is one of the people whom it doesn’t go away for. It’s not necessarily about when he’s more confident or nervous or angry or sad. A stutter can be really inconsistent. Sometimes when you’re really angry, you won’t have one, but sometimes when you’re really angry, you’ll have it more than you ever had it before. There’s no rhyme or reason sometimes.
What does change is your comfort with speaking in general. You’ll notice that when Vic is around Sofia for the first time in Episode 3—me and Marc worked on this a lot and incorporated it into the script—a lot more “uh,” “um,” those filler words. If she hears him stuttering, she’ll think he’s nervous and hiding something. In order to not stutter, you’re pretending to think: “ummm,” “uhhh.” She doesn’t hear you get blocked on a word. So it does change based on who he’s talking to: if he’s on the phone or not, if he’s meeting someone for the first time or fifth time, if he’s comfortable with them or not. It lives and breathes on its own.
In this finale, we see Vic really coming into his own as a worthy sidekick, mobilizing Link and people from these different criminal empires against the Maronis and Gigantes. What is it that makes Vic well-suited to this, and how does he pull it off?
Victor is constantly learning from one of the better minds in the underground crime world. Oz thinks on his feet and makes the right moves over and over again. Sometimes he lets his anger get the better of him, and he’s impulsive, but when he’s moving chess pieces, there’s nobody better. Vic will sit there and watch and listen and observe and take in the information. At the beginning of Episode 6, Oz tells Victor, “These people, we have their loyalty. Do you know why? Because we pay them.” Later on in that episode, what does Vic do to figure out the Squid situation? He tries to pay him off.
So when it comes down to that moment of “God, how are we going to make this work?” he doesn’t just sit back and take orders. He’s learning to be proactive and figure things out for himself. Victor has been able to see that Link and these other guys have this respect, and that seconds-in-command are ambitious as well. This is their moment to rise.
Of course, the biggest Vic moment in the finale is his death at the hands of Oz, moments after calling him “family.” How did you talk through that scene, and how early did you know this was Vic’s fate?
[Showrunner Lauren LeFranc] and I talked about it even before I showed up in New York to start shooting. We knew there would be this arc, this big moment at the end. There was a lot of conversation about leading up to it, just in terms of physically what it was going to be like and feel like and look like. That day was something Colin and I had both metaphorically circled on our calendars. I remember a week before, he was kind of like, “You ready? Got a scene in a week.” And I’m like, “I know, I know, I know.” And then three days before, he’s like, “You know, three days,” and then the day before, “Tomorrow’s the big day!”
The important part of nailing it for Victor is the first half of that scene: this incredibly vulnerable state that he allows himself to get to. It’s pretty soft. It’s slow, and it takes its time, and it’s paced out. Victor is telling Oz, in their own words, “I love you,” basically. That’s the subtext. They’re too macho to say those words to each other, but that’s the feeling. When I read it, I thought it was beautiful, and I wanted to give it air and space. Me and Colin’s coverage was shot at the exact same time, so it all feels very organic and back-and-forth and sweet … right before it isn’t.
How was the experience of filming?
It took all night. We were outdoors, it was a cold winter day in New York. We shot that on Roosevelt Island on the riverbank. It was real silent. It’s gruesome, and it’s brutal. Toward the end of the show, those light moments kind of dissipate and we’re left with something pretty dark and twisted. We’re witnessing Oz turn into something kind of irredeemable. Being on set that day, everyone felt sullen. There was a darkness in the air, there was a hush.
As I watched this season, I kept worrying about Vic. He feels like a tragic character. I was like, “Oh god, don’t kill off this guy, he’s the heart and soul.”
Maybe I’m just cynical, but I thought maybe people wouldn’t care much about Victor since he’s not such a badass. Even Francis is kind of badass, telling Sofia off in that scene. It’s fun to watch. Oz is a badass, Sofia is a badass. Victor is a little bit more sensitive and soft. You can see how much it hurts him to kill Squid, someone he’s known for years. Of course, given more time, he’s changing. I think at the end, if he had to shoot Sofia when she’s about to take out her gun, he wouldn’t feel as bad as he did the first time. But I was afraid people wouldn’t connect with him in that way, because he’s not as “cool” as the others.
But in the responses I’ve gotten so far, people do care about him. I care about him a lot. He’s just a kid in this very crazy, psychotic world where he has to dismember people and murder people. That’s not a normal thing for a 17-year-old kid to go through.
On Runaways, you worked with a lot of younger actors, so this seems like a different beast.
For sure. [At 27] I’m [among] the youngest on this thing, so it was different, but I couldn’t have asked for anything better. It feels like everyone’s on their A game, and to be around that is inspiring. All you’re trying to do is just not be the weak link—just be on par with everybody else’s excellence. I know how hard everyone worked on this show, from the writers to the producers to the cast and crew. Seeing how hard everyone worked, while still being so great at what they do—I don’t want to ever get to the place where I feel comfortable enough to just coast.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.