The Irish rover

Not so very long ago, Colin Farrell was best known for slumming it in the small screen world of Ballykissangel. By the end of this year, though, the Dubliner will have appeared alongside Al Pacino in the CIA thriller The Farm; with Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg’s hotly anticipated Phillip K. Dick adaptation Minority Report – and also faces off Ben Affleck as Daredevil‘s nemesis Bullseye in the upcoming big screen outing for the Marvel comics’ blind superhero.

Certainly, it’s been an impressive run of roles for Shamrock Rovers’ best-known fan (his dad and uncle played for them) since Kevin Spacey first ‘discovered’ Farrell whilst in Dublin making Ordinary Decent Criminal. From there, Farrell went on to land the lead role in Joel Schumacher’s ‘Nam flick Tigerland – and while the movie was more than a little formulaic, Farrell’s performance as a wayward Texan drafted into service was anything but. In fact, Schumacher was to immediately cast the Dublin actor again in his follow up film Phone Booth, giving him a role originally earmarked for Will Smith.

If Colin Farrell has thus far been showcasing his talents in smaller movies, he has nevertheless been attracting rave reviews, not to mention critical awards, and his charismatic turn in Hart’s War alongside Bruce Willis looks set to further his reputation as a star in waiting.

Farrell, though, has not let his career success go to his head. When Moviehouse caught up with him recently he was even still grateful for that first big break into fluffy tea-time telly: “That was a fucking huge thing for me at the time, and then Ordinary Decent Criminal was a massive break,” he reflects. “(Kevin) Spacey got me into that, really, he introduced me to Thaddaeus O’Sullivan, and obviously that was unreal, to be sharing a screen with that fucker – along with Peter Mullan, who’s a phenomenal actor. And then Tigerland seemed so much bigger than that, again – (Joel) Schumacher took a huge leap of faith in me there. He’s fucking fantastic – he was a junkie, he’s been through so much in his personal life. He’s come back and came out on the right side – he’s very brash and honest, and cuts through bullshit very quickly, he’s a lot to say, he always speaks his mind. If he doesn’t like you, you’ll know about it – if he does, he’ll shower you with affection. I’ll work with him again, no doubt.”

Does Farrell’s head spin when he wakes up in the morning and realises he’s working with Bruce Willis or Al Pacino?

“On meeting them first, and getting the call – yeah. You’re over the fucking moon, and your head spins a bit. And when you meet them the first time, you’re so nervous you’re wearing brown trousers – I’m a film fan long before I became an actor, so you have some previous history with these guys, for years and years, looking at their faces, seeing them in magazines, on posters and billboards, at award ceremonies and premieres, and watching their movies. And you almost feel as if you know them.

“Then meeting them in the flesh, there’s a different dynamic, a real dynamic – and you actually get used to them pretty quick. You never forget who they are, or how lucky you are – but you see them every fucking day, and you soon learn that if you cut them, they bleed. Or if you hurt someone in their family, they’d probably cry. They’re flesh and blood like all of us, albeit very successful and very famous.”

Are they in touch with the real world at all?

“Pacino very much still lives in the real world. More than anyone else – that isn’t bad a reflection on Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise, both of whom are dead-on and really sound, I’m not just saying this – but Pacino is a fucking artist and a craftsman supreme. He still walks the streets of New York, lives there, he’s really something else. I loved both Die Hards , I’ve loved Cruise as an actor, but Pacino had been more of a personal idol and it was incredible working with him.

“Bruce is fucking great, a great man to go to the pub with. Thank God, all of the big names I’ve worked with have been good guys: obviously, some of them have bigger entourages than others, you can only get so close as human beings. As for all that shit about Cruise being impossible to make eye contact with, I can personally vouch that that’s a load of bollocks, he’s fuckin’ lovely. He’s had so much shit written about him that you can understand if he’s a bit protected, and he does live in an alternate world to some extent from the one we’re in right now.”

How does Farrell divide his time now?

“I’m here (Dublin) when I’m not working, I’ve a gaff in Irishtown which I’ve had for five years. When I’m working, I go wherever that takes me. Prague, Toronto, LA, whatever, so I haven’t got a toothbrush or a pair of slippers anywhere in the world except here. Don’t need it, I’m travelling around like a one-man circus, staying in hotels, having an adventure. I can’t complain, I’m a lucky bastard. Your life should be an adventure. It doesn’t disjoint me like it does some people, I feel comfortable anywhere in the world, although I haven’t been on a bus in India yet. Am I going to moan about it? I’ve no set plan, anyway, I’m just winging it.

“But this is home, always has been home, always will be. There’s nowhere in the world that comes close. I’m still in touch with all me mates from when I was 11 years old. They’re the first to pull the piss out of me, they’re the first to enjoy everything I’m going through as well. 20 of them came over with my family to a premiere in LA, which was wild. I don’t want to do this on my own, it wouldn’t be any fun and it would get very cold and greedy and lonely really quick. I want to do it with people I’ve loved for years that I’ve had around me all my life.”

Though frequently spoken of as a ‘next big thing’. Farrell has yet to be associated with a huge hit: does he feel under any pressure as a result?

“Not at all. They’ve been saying ‘next big thing’ for years, I couldn’t give a bollocks. I’m having far too much fun to get nervous or fearful about anything. This fuckin’ thing (Hart’s War) bombed in America, it was marketed as Die Hard in a POW camp and it’s miles from that, it’s a slow film slowly told. It broke my heart for Gregory Hoblit (the director) who spent two years of his life on it.”

Is Farrell still a Shamrock Rovers fan?

“No, not really – I’m still very aware of the fact that my father played for them, and proud of that, but I was never really all that passionate a fan, I could never really be arsed going along to stand on freezing terraces – and y’know, me dad never instilled that in me, he wasn’t one of these guys who went around saying ‘the League of Ireland is great’, and in fact I remember him once advising me never to support a football team, just to follow the game instead. And even at twelve, I was watching it as a purist – which isn’t really the best way to watch Rovers.”

Had he any aspirations to a footballing career?

“Yeah, there were a couple of years when I wanted to do that, for sure, or I thought I did, I trained twice a week. I was never good enough – and then, as me dad had predicted, some bird grabbed me by the short and curlies and I had a few cans of beer and a few smokes, and that was the end of me for training.”