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When The Penguin actor Cristin Milioti says that her role as the daughter of crime boss Carmine Falcone is a dream job, she’s not entirely exaggerating — it turns out, she’s been planning to be the offspring of a Gotham City villain since she was a kid.

Milioti plays Sofia Falcone in the upcoming Max series, with the character returning to take control of the Falcone crime family — and, perhaps, Gotham’s criminal underworld as a whole — after the events of 2022’s The Batman movie. As she revealed during the San Diego Comic-Con 2024 Hall H panel to promote the series, she’s thrilled by the chance to step into the Batman mythos with the series… and it’s something she’s been trying to do for decades.

“I had truly the time of my life,” she said of appearing in the show, specifically calling out the “volatility” and “real power struggle” between her character the Colin Farrell’s title character as one of the primary reasons she loved the part. “I had the most incredible time. I was stoked.”

Turns out, she’s accidentally been rehearsing for the character without knowing it for some time, with Milioti revealing that, as a kid, she would play pretend that she was in Gotham… but not as one of the good guys.

“I would ride my bike all around, and I would pretend that I was the Riddler’s daughter who had to take over his empire, which is not even in the canon,” she told the crowd, much to everyone’s amusement. “I would ride my bike around, and go mwah-ha-ha!”

With this kind of background, we can’t wait to see what Sofia Falcone is like when The Penguin begins on Max September 19.

Get a fuller San Diego Comic-Con experience with a full rundown of our SDCC 2024 stories, as well as all the big SDCC 2024 news, how to make the most out of San Diego Comic-Con, and the real burning question: how much does it actually cost to go to SDCC?