Robin Lord Taylor Interview with Bello Magazine 

Featured in BELLO mag March 2015 issue #69 available worldwide on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon.

Robin Lord Taylor is sitting at home in his New York City digs on his day off from playing Gotham City’s undying Oswald Cobblepot when he calls me up in Los Angeles for a chat. The voice of his character and his own overlap. I’m not surprised, and I find myself itching for a glimpse of the scheming underdog through our coast-stretching phone line.

He doesn’t know what’d he was doing this day last year, but he knows it wouldn’t have been a break day from fighting forces in crime-ridden Gotham City. Taylor plays a young Cobblepot and soon-to-be Penguin, according to the foreshadowing references made on the hit series. Most movie lovers have the most famous Penguin of all – the very creepy version orchestrated by Danny DeVito – engraved into the corners of their minds. Robin Lord Taylor is right there with us. He tells me DeVito’s 1992 performance in Batman Returns is one he’s watched several times, and that above all, there was one aspect of DeVito’s presentation that he really tried to bring into his creation: the fun. “This character, despite the way he looks, is still charismatic,” says Taylor. “It’s something that I really wanted to use in my own characterization. At the same time, since it’s the origin story, I still feel like I have a lot of freedom to make the character my own and take it in a new direction no one’s ever seen before.”

Already it seems as if the Iowa native is doing just that. His fresh portrayal of an early Oswald is as amusing and scary as it is off-kilter as he sets up the future life of his character, which is nothing short of what has been expected. Taylor’s is a story of an actor meeting late but great success through a role that was evidently meant for no one else but Robin Lord himself. To think he fabricated this character’s persona without knowing who or what he was actually auditioning for leaves you wondering what the other auditions must’ve looked like.

“They were very secretive about it, and so I didn’t get a script. They wrote a fake scene with fake names,” he admits. “The night before I went in, my agent gave me the tip-off. By that point I had prepared my scene and made all my choices. I said, I’m just going to go in there and do it how I see it.” That he did, and after only reading once, casting directors told him they’d be in touch. The next few days and weeks were a series of standard tinseltown steps. “In the end, it came together pretty organically. It was one of the most high profile things I’d ever auditioned for, yet it was one of the smoothest audition processes I’ve ever had.”

Now working in his hometown of many years, Taylor can’t help but think he’s lucked out in more ways than he can count. “I wanted to be on any show; I would move anywhere and go anywhere to do it. But the fact that it’s New York, my real home at this point, is something I just can’t see anything else beating. The energy and people of New York City feed the authenticity of the show. I don’t think you could do Gotham City justice anywhere else. I love that I can maintain the life that I had and built here, yet still be apart of this project. It’s brilliant.”

He’s a regular New Yorker and like most, he prides himself on it, but his beginnings were much humbler. Taylor grew up in the very tiny town of Shueyville, Iowa, which boasts a population of fewer than 600 people. Contrary to popular belief, an upbringing in Small Town, USA wasn’t exactly a nightmare for Taylor. In fact, it wasn’t even close. “There were some small town mentalities and small town attitudes,” he recalls. “Overall, it was very idyllic. I felt very lucky because I grew up very close to Iowa City, near the University of Iowa, which is a fantastic school. I was near a liberal, open-minded town where the arts were celebrated. However, by the time I graduated high school, I was ready to leave.” Taylor made the move to Illinois to study at the famed Northwestern University before finding his way to the lights of New York City. Reflecting back on that time, he says he always wanted to live in a big city, but to have grown in the country with the space to explore and let his imagination run wild is an invaluable chance to have had in life.

Spending his current days diving into the psyche of his demented FOX double doesn’t seem like the worst idea; it’s something he relishes in. He shows me first hand how in tune he is with his character as he explains the nature of Oswald Cobblepot and Jim Gordon’s relationship.

“It’s a fascinating dynamic that the two of them have. Oswald really does view Jim Gordon as a friend. Jim saved his life and Oswald will never forget that,” he says. “Penguin doesn’t have friends; he sees people more as tools to get what he wants. But I really do feel like he views Jim with real genuine affection and truly wants to be his friend and ally. He understands that to get by in Gotham City, you have to have a friend on the other side of the fence. It’s particularly interesting, because even though Jim does not want to be friends with Oswald, he’s also starting to realize he needs someone on the other side. It’s an interesting dance that the two of them are having.” It’s definitely a dance in a potentially multiple-season ball. But who’s complaining? One guess—Fish Mooney.

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