‘The Penguin’ Star Rhenzy Feliz on Victor’s Backstory & Choice to Stick With Oz

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for The Penguin, Season 1, Episode 3, “Bliss.”]

The Penguin dug into Victor Aguilar’s (Rhenzy Feliz) backstory with the latest installment, “Bliss,” as Oz (Colin Farrell) aligned himself with Sofia Falcone (Cristin Milioti) to expand business with the titular new drug.

Results were varied though as in the episode’s final moments, Oz was confronted by Nadia Maroni (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and associates outside of the club they were selling bliss in. Oz is called out for his antics, but there isn’t much time for his metaphorical dirty laundry to be aired because it’s the same time Victor is driving up to the club.

Seeing his boss on the ground with a gun pointed in his direction, the kid takes initiative, the kind of ambitious move Oz previously accused Victor incapable of as he drives directly into the threat, saving Oz and leaving Sofia behind. Racing away in the streets, Victor makes his choice regarding the life he wants to lead, which is quite different from the one he was raised in.

In the episode’s opening moments, fans get a peek into Victor’s family life with his parents and sister just as he’s heading out to meet his girlfriend, Graciela (Anire Kim Amoda). Hanging out on a roof together, he witnesses the water rushing into his neighborhood as the seawalls are destroyed by the Riddler’s (Paul Dano) planted bombs as previously revealed in The Batman. The sequence offers a different perspective on the disaster and explains Victor’s apprehensive approach to some of Oz’s seedier assignments for him.

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Victor’s a good kid forced to take part in bad activities to survive, but Oz works to convince him that doing bad deeds can raise you higher on the ladder of success. Faced with a possible escape alongside girlfriend Graciela, Victor had a choice to make, and ultimately that was to stick with Oz. Will it pay off? Feliz weighs in, below.

We go back in time to see The Batman‘s flood through Victor’s eyes at the start of this episode. What was it like digging into his backstory? How much did you know heading into this project?

Rhenzy Feliz: Thankfully, I knew all the contents of what happens in his backstory. I had already spoken about it with Lauren [LeFranc], and so all that is playing in the first couple of episodes, but in the third one, the audience finally gets a window in. I think it’s super useful to understand this morality thing that he’s battling, especially in that third episode, [where he’s asking] “Is this actually what I should be doing?” There’s a lot going on with this kid who’s never been asked to do any of this or seen any of it before.

So I think it’s massive that the audience gets to see a little bit of [Victor’s life] before that existed, before that was what was being asked of him. These things are so difficult for him because Oz seemingly does it on command and [Sofia] is a little bit off the wall as well. Victor’s in this space where he’s a good kid and he’s brought into a world that he’s never encountered before.

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We learn that Victor lost his family in the flood. Has he had any time to grieve their loss?

That’s one of the things that I found so fascinating is that he hasn’t really had the time. Having time is a luxury, and I think a lot of people who grew up in these kinds of situations and in poverty don’t have the luxury of sitting back and thinking and being thoughtful and worrying about their next step. He doesn’t really have time to think. He’s living out of some FEMA camp somewhere and he needs money.

There’s no long-term plan, and that’s one of the things that Oz tells Victor in that very first episode is, “What’s your plan, kid? What are you going to do?” You’ve got to think longer term than that. The first time he even gets a breath since [meeting Oz] is in that third episode, and the first thing he wants to do is connect with someone that I think he has a lot of love for and someone who reminds him of what the hell was going on before he got thrown into this crazy world.

In the end, Victor lets Graciela leave town without him. Was she his last tie to that world of comfort and safety, or do you think he hopes they’ll reconnect in the future?

I think maybe he imagines they’ll reconnect. I think he thinks that going with Oz is the right move right now. Oz tells him something in the bathroom that I think, at the moment, is hard to hear, which is they don’t give out awards for dying in the projects, which he immediately [reacts to]. But I think it’s something that he thinks about and what he thinks about is “Who do I really want to be at the end of this? If I keep going on the path that I was going down, I’m not going to have anything and I’m not going to be able to be anyone.”

In Victor’s mind, he’s thinking, what are his opportunities, what’s the pathway forward here? The only one he can see an opportunity to be something is this road with Oz. And although it’s dangerous, he sees it as his way out. It’s his way out of the life that he’s been thrown into. He has to make a decision and he’s got to lose something that he loves, and he’s got to embrace a part that I think he knows his parents would be ashamed of him for, which is an incredibly hard thing to stomach.

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Oz stands up for Victor when his stutter becomes more pronounced. How important is it for Victor to have that support?

I [imagined Victor’s] childhood was much quieter, which is why I think Victor’s very observant in general, and I think that one of his main characteristics is he’s more of a listener than a talker, which I think is a domino effect of him having a stutter. Having someone like Oz who is the opposite with a very big grandiose personality and likes to talk and hear his voice, I think the little kid in Victor needs to hear that.

To hear someone as powerful and as big as Oz as someone who you instinctually might think is the kind of guy that would make fun of Victor be the one telling me to stand up and to put my chest out and to take up space [means something].  And I think Victor’s so used to making himself small, to hear you are worth something means a lot to him. And I think that going forward that kind of arc progresses.

By the end of the episode, Victor makes the choice to run to some of the Maroni family’s men to help save Oz. Has he crossed a line that he can’t run back now?

A hundred percent. On his way back, [Victor decided], “I’m going to try and ride this thing out. Let’s see what happens with Oz.” And when he gets there, he realizes there’s not much time to make a decision. His foot’s already on the gas and going, and so he makes that decision before he even knows he’s fully made it. You can see the look on Victor’s face of understanding and realizing “Holy s**t, maybe I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Maybe I don’t even totally know what this thing is.” And there’s fear in his eyes, but he’s in it and it’s exactly like Oz says, “We’re in it now, kid.” We’re really in it.

The Penguin, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO and Max