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Penguin showrunner Lauren LeFranc on Sofia: “I wanted to create the character I never got as a little girl.”
At The Penguin press session at New York Comic Con 2024, Lauren LeFranc dishes on Sofia Falcone’s origin story
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As much as Max’s Penguin series is an origin story about one of Batman’s most iconic villains, it also serves as the origin story of Sofia Falcone. While Falcone and her family have always been significant characters in the Batman universe, the TV series represents a radical boost in her status. Rather than a supporting character, TV’s Sofia is growing into a character of equal complexity and power as Penguin.
In developing the character, showrunner Lauren LeFranc considered her own experiences reading Batman growing up. “When I would sit in the back of my mom’s Volvo [reading Batman],” she shared, “I would envision myself sometimes as a male character, because I didn’t have any women that felt that I could connect to.” Looking at the canon of female characters in the Batverse, she said, “So few of them actually were dug into [as characters] for whatever reason.”
As the Penguin showrunner, she saw her job as taking well-known characters like the Penguin and giving them even more layers and complexity. But she also asked, “Who does this universe need more of? Who do we not have?”
“Given that I’m in the Batman universe, I’m in this canon now, and they’re allowing me to tell the type of stories that I want to tell, I want to do right by them,” LeFranc acknowledges. But she saw her responsibility as extending beyond that. “I also want to make sure I can evolve [the canon] and transform it, so there’s less people in the backseat of their mom’s car wondering who they could imagine themselves as or how you can play make believe. I think make believe is so important.”
The first season of The Penguin is currently airing on HBO and streaming on Max.
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Jacob Javits Convention Center
USA
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