Robin Lord Taylor's John Wick 3 Role Gave Him A Very Un-Gotham Look

Robin Lord Taylor as The Penguin in Gotham

Besides showing how fruitless it is to try and collect a $14 million bounty on Keanu Reeves’ eponymous protagonist, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum will also introduce a host of colorful characters who inhabit this criminal community. One of these individuals is played by Robin Lord Taylor, who’s best known for playing Oswald Cobblepot, a.k.a. The Penguin, on Gotham. Taylor used this opportunity to have his character, The Administrator, look quite different than the villain he plays on the Fox TV series. As Taylor put it:

I took the character in a physical dimension that was different for me so I’m very excited for people to see it. It’s very iconic.

While I suspect Robin Lord Taylor’s Administrator, like The Penguin, will be finely dressed given that the criminals in John Wick’s sphere are usually wearing dapper threads, clearly we shouldn’t expect The Administrator to be rocking a Penguin-like appearance. Considering that Gotham is Taylor’s best known work, I can’t blame him for wanting to do something different for John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum. Fingers crossed the folks at Lionsgate release an official still of The Administrator or include footage of him in another John Wick: Chapter 3 trailer so we know exactly what Taylor is talking about.

As for how much we’ll see of Robin Lord Taylor in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, the actor told Slashfilm at the TCA press tour that he only shot his scenes on the movie’s first day of principal photography, while Gotham was on hiatus between Seasons 4 and 5. So it sounds we won’t be seeing much of The Administrator, although Taylor reaffirmed that he is an “important person in that world.” Taylor also mentioned that we won’t see The Administrator get into a gunfight with John. He continued:

I get no guns in John Wick. Again, it’s a very, very small episode and I was actually freaked out about telling people about it. Oftentimes with big movies like that, you can end up on the floor in the editing bay. From what I hear, I’m still in it.

Considering that two of John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum’s new characters, Angelica Huston’s The Director and Asia Kate Dillon’s The Adjudicator, are confirmed to be members of The High Table, it’s a good bet that Robin Lord Taylor’s The Administrator is also a member of the incredibly powerful council of crime lords. Since The High Table placed the bounty on John Wick’s head, which is why he’s on the run, this could also mean that The Administrator will find himself targeted because he’s made John’s life hell.

Along with the previously mentioned actors, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum also sees the return of Ian McShane as Winston, Lance Reddick as Charon, Laurence Fishburne as The Bowery King and John Leguizamo as Aurelio, while the other new faces include Halle Berry as Sofia, Mark Dacascos as Zero and Jason Mantzoukas as Tick Tock Man, among others.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum hits theaters on May 17, and if you’re curious about what other movies are coming out this year, look through our 2019 release schedule.

Adam Holmes
Senior Content Producer

Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.