Cristin Milioti on Tackling Marriage Problems in ‘In Your Dreams’ and Still Hoping for ‘The Penguin’ Season 2

Cristin Milioti insists she’s not thinking too much about the possibility of “The Penguin” getting a second season.

“I feel like I have zero chill about it because every time I’m asked [about a Season 2], I’m like, ‘Sign me up!’” Milioti, who an Emmy for her work on the DC Comics show, told me while promoting her new animated Netflix movie “In Your Dreams.” “I love [series creator] Lauren [LeFranc] so much. I love our whole cast. It’s such an incredible group.”

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“The Penguin” star Colin Farrell has consistently maintained that he is in “no rush” for a sophomore run of the series. “I don’t want it. I don’t not want it,” he told me at the SAG Awards in February. “We all left it in the ring in those eight hours. … So I’m in no rush. I have no deep desire to do it.”

However, in July, after the Emmy nominations were announced, HBO and Max boss Casey Bloys told Variety’s Michael Schneider that LeFranc and executive producer Matt Reeves have had discussions about Season 2. Reeves confirmed at the Emmys that conversations occurred, but his current priority is directing the second “The Batman” movie with Robert Pattinson.

“In Your Dreams” tackles divorce as two young siblings meet the mythical Sandman in their dreams and ask him to help keep their parents (Milioti and Simu Liu) together as they move towards separating.

Milioti first read the script in 2021. “It really moved me to think about how we deal with hardships and how we sometimes want things to be different, and the ways in which we navigate that,” she said.

While marriage problems may seem too serious an issue for a family film, Milioti points to other animated movies that tackle deeper subjects.

“If you go back and look at some of the Disney films like ‘The Lion King’ – it’s ‘Hamlet.’ And ‘Bambi’? Forget about it,” Milioti said. “That is one of the most special things about this movie and about animation, too. It sort of begins this nuanced conversation with kids like, ‘This can be really hard and scary. This can feel like your world is falling apart and it is changing. But it is not as scary as it might seem.’”

“In Your Dreams” is available on Netflix.