Danny DeVito Was So Scary as Penguin That a Monkey Attacked Him

In Tim Burton's Batman Returns, Danny DeVitoplayed the role of Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a The Penguin. His creation of the villain is memorable, and this is mainly due to how expressive and frightening character he managed to portray. The character of the Penguin is so dark largely due to his Oscar-nominated makeup, but the creepy look of his character almost came for the price of the actor's health.

Related:Tim Burton Bitterly on Warner Bros. and Superhero Cinema

As it turns out, there was some dangerous incident involving... a monkey on the set of the 1992 movie. It seems that the appearance of the character was too scary not only for children (this was complained about at one time by viewers), but also for an animal that starred in the film.

In the third act of Tim Burton's work, the Penguin wants to punish Gotham City by kidnapping and murdering the first-born sons. However, Batman manages to nullify this foul plan, of which he informs the villain by a letter. The message is hand-delivered to Oswald by his monkey. As DeVito recently told EW , although the first attempt at this scene went without much trouble, the next one encountered some trouble.

However, nothing serious happened to the actor, and all thanks to the costume he was wearing. The monkey only bit out a piece of the costume off. We can only guess how frightening DeVito must have been as Penguin, since he scared a monkey to the point that it attacked him.

Pamela Jakiel

Pamela Jakiel

Finished film studies, graduate of the Faculty Individual Studies in the Humanities at the Jagiellonian University. Her master's thesis was about new spirituality in contemporary cinema. The editor of the Filmomaniak service since April 2023, supports the lead editor and the boss of all newspeople. She used to write for naEkranie. If she's not watching The Ninth Gate for the hundredth time, then she's reading books by Therese Bohman and Donna Tartt for the first time. She prefers gnosis over dread, dramas over horrors, Jung over Freud. She looks for symbolist paintings in museums. Runs long distances, and does even the longer ones on a gravel. Loves dachshunds.