Actress Kelly Macdonald says watching “The Penguin” in prep almost affected her accent work. Lanterns star likens Gotham connection to ‘finding out you’re a Disney princess’ Actress Kelly Macdonald says watching “The Penguin” in prep almost affected her accent work. By Nick Romano :maxbytes(150000):stripicc()/NicholasRomanoauthorphotoadc9b60763e34711935cbf7b3d768d24.jpg) Nick Romano Nick Romano is a senior editor at with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

Actress Kelly Macdonald says watching “The Penguin” in prep almost affected her accent work.

Lanterns star likens Gotham connection to ‘finding out you’re a Disney princess’

Actress Kelly Macdonald says watching “The Penguin” in prep almost affected her accent work.

By Nick Romano

Nick Romano

Nick Romano is a senior editor at ** with 15 years of journalism experience covering entertainment. His work previously appeared in Vanity Fair, Vulture, IGN, and more.

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August 27, 2026 9:30 a.m. ET

‘Lanterns’ star likens Gotham connection to ‘finding out you’re a Disney princess’. Credit:

HBO; Warner Bros

- *Lanterns* star Kelly Macdonald reacts to that Gotham connection.

- “It’s like finding out you’re a Disney princess or something,” the actress behind Sheriff Kerry says.

- Macdonald recalls watching *The Penguin* during the shoot and almost going too Gotham with her accent.

**This article contains spoilers from *Lanterns* episode 2, “Trust Fall.”**

Three words in the *Lanterns* script gave actress Kelly Macdonald a whole new perspective on her character: “I’m from Gotham.”

Sheriff Kerry discloses this pretty big piece of her backstory in the second episode of HBO’s DC Studios drama during a walk-and-talk with Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) in the oddly empty Rushville hospital. “Moved here on a whim,” she says of uprooting her life for rural Nebraska.

“It was huge,” Macdonald tells ** of the reveal. “It was very exciting. It’s like finding out you’re a Disney princess or something. It’s like, ‘Oh my God! Gotham!’ She’s an outsider, as well, and she’s been embraced by this small town.”

Kyle Chandler as Hal Jordan, Kelly Macdonald as Sheriff Kerry on ‘Lanterns’.

The star nearly went full Gotham accent, the kind you’d hear in HBO’s *The Penguin*, starring Colin Farrell as the titular Batman adversary, a.k.a. Oz Cobb. Macdonald remembers watching that series amid her prep for *Lanterns*.

“Within the first couple of months of the shoot, as well, I was watching *The Penguin* at the same time,” she says. “Sometimes I’d been over-watching *The Penguin,* and I’d be going through my dialogue in my trailer, and I’d realize I was doing the whole Gotham thing. I’d be like, ‘Turn it down a little bit,’ ‘cause I’d been told very specifically, ‘She’s from Gotham but don’t do the accent thing.’ She has to be more ambiguous than that. I’m sure you’ll be able to tell the scenes where I’ve been watching *The Penguin*.”

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*Lanterns*, to clarify, isn’t connected to *The Penguin*. Farrell’s series is part of director Matt Reeves “Batman Epic Crime Saga,” which, along with the Robert Pattinson-led *The Batman* and *The Batman Part II*, remains its own contained world and setting.

The show, however, is connected to the upcoming film *Clayface*, which takes place before the events of HBO’s animated *Creature Commandos*. Tom Rhys Harries plays Matt Hagen, the Gotham City actor who becomes the monstrous, shapeshifting Batman villain known as Clayface.

Tom Rhys Harries as Matt Hagen/Clayface in ‘Clayface’.

*Lanterns* focuses on Hal Jordan, a veteran of the Green Lantern Corps, as he reluctantly trains up the new recruit, John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), whom Hal’s cosmic bosses tapped as his potential replacement. In the year 2016, the pair investigate a mass shooting in Rushville that turns out to be an alien incident. They try to unravel the mystery of the perpetrator(s), though it often leads to head-butting with local law enforcement, run by Sheriff Kerry.

The series also includes flashbacks to the characters’ lives before Rushville, as well as a flash-forward to 2026 and the events surrounding Hal’s death.

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“I remember reading that [Gotham connection]in the script and all of a sudden my mind going, ‘Oh that’s right! This is the world,’” Jason Ritter, playing Kerry’s husband, says. “I’m in this world with everyone. Metropolis is somewhere out there, too. It’s just very, very exciting to have it all come together because I was so in the *Lanterns* world that I, for a second, forgot that we’re in the whole DC universe.”

A new episode of *Lanterns* will premiere on HBO and stream on HBO Max this coming Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT.

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Source: "EW Superhero"

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Source: Superhero

Published: August 30, 2026 at 12:38AM on Source: MORNING MAG

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