Colin
Farrell says he has gone through many different chapters in his life since his
acting career began 18 years ago. Picture: Supplied Source:
National Features
Neala Johnson, The Daily Telegraph, reports
Half a lifetime ago, an Irish kid by the name of Colin Farrell landed in Sydney.
With his two friends, Farrell checked into the Oxford Koala Hotel in Oxford St. Their room had only two beds.
"The two lads took a bed each, they were knackered from the flight," recalls Farrell. "But I was in the mood to walk around the streets of Sydney."
Only two weeks shy of his 18th birthday, Farrell plugged in his Discman - "Remember Discmans?" he laughs - and hit the footpath. There he came across Liz Mullinar Casting. He went inside ...
"I had no work to show, I was just like, 'Yeah, I've been an actor in Ireland ... ' I lied," Farrell admits.
"They introduced me to this gang of people that needed somebody - an actor in the play they were about to do had just got a Pepsi commercial so they lost him," he laughs.
"Because it was about Ned Kelly and the bushrangers they were looking for a dialect coach to help with Irish accents as well. That's why I got the part, more than any acting acumen. We performed that in the Performance Space in Redfern, for a week. That was my first experience of working with a bunch of actors."
As with many a backpacker, Farrell wasn't sure whether his trip was to find his path in life or to just, you know, get drunk.
"One finds one in the other then one forgets what one found and has to go, 'Where the f--- did I put myself?'," he mock-philosophises.
"No, we went over just out of adventure, the three of us. It was really cool. I haven't been back since and that was, man, that was 18 years ago. I can't believe it was that long ago ... "
Eighteen years later, Farrell may not have returned to Australia, but he has seemingly managed to cram several different lives into his 36 years.
"We probably all have," he says. "The chapters of my life maybe just by being in the public forum seem a little more, not extravagant, but a bit more in-your-face. But just chapters of a life, like we all have."
Farrell's acting chapter began in earnest when he returned to Dublin and enrolled in a course at a theatre school.
After one year, auditions led to a TV commercial then "a small part in a feature film that cost about a nickel to make".
That got him an agent and an audition for a BBC mini-series, Falling for a Dancer. Then came a play in London that was seen by Kevin Spacey, who hooked Farrell up with a Hollywood agent.
"And the rest ... " says Farrell, letting it hang in the air.
'The rest' includes Tigerland, the war film that made him hot property in 2000. Then Phone Booth, SWAT, The Recruit, Minority Report ...
He mixed the big roles with indies, as well as enough partying (read boozing, drug-taking, womanising) to make a rock star feel incompetent. In 2005, he checked himself into rehab.
The next chapter: flops. Think terrible blonde hair and Angelina Jolie in Alexander.
He wouldn't really emerge from this chapter until 2008's instant cult classic In Bruges - a black comedy about a hitman on the edge in the Belgian city.
So now here sits Farrell in another chapter: a clean-living, yoga-doing father-of-two, diving back into blockbusters with Total Recall, a new spin on the Arnold Schwarzenegger original of 22 years ago (funnily enough, much of the film is set in a future Australia, known as "The Colony"). Why now?
"I didn't have many offers, to be honest, for big projects after a couple of big projects I did didn't work so well," Farrell shrugs. "It's not like people were knocking on my door after Alexander and Miami Vice throwing money.
"To be honest I was nervous about doing a $150 million, or whatever it is, film. 'What does it have to do on opening weekend? Orgh! F---!' But anyway, it felt like the right idea."
Farrell lives in LA, where he can see his two sons, nine-year-old James (with model Kim Bordenave) and going-on-three Henry (with Ondine co-star Alicja Bachleda-Curus).
He started going to yoga classes a year ago: "Maybe you're at home one day, your kids are with their mothers and you go, 'What'll I do today? Ah, yoga!' You get online and you go, '2.45pm. Yoga. OK!'
"I did it with a class of 40 people in Los Angeles, everyone sweating, and I loved it."
It's this kind of stuff that makes him less and less worried that the wheel of exhaustion (with the business, with life) will spin his way again.
"It'd probably help if I stay away from cocaine and whiskey," he says dryly. "I'm not going to say I'm a different man or anything like that, I just do different things. I enjoy the work more; I enjoy being a dad more; I do things I never thought I'd do, like yoga."
And remakes - he has now made two back-to-back: vampire thriller Fright Night and Total Recall.
His reasoning: "Jeff Buckley sings Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen ... There has to be room in art for interpretation."
Besides, he loved the original Total Recall, in which Arnie went to Mars on a "virtual vacation" then regained his secret-agent memory. "It's so out there!" Farrell enthuses.
This remake, from director Len Wiseman, went back to the source material of Philip K. Dick's story and is more serious in tone. Still, it retains the wife who turns out to be not-so-devoted (Kate Beckinsale) and the woman he can't remember loving (Jessica Biel).
And plenty of biffo, especially with Beckinsale.
"I just realised, I have decked women in about nine films," Farrell says. "Pride and Glory, Daredevil, London Boulevard, Intermission, Total Recall ... the list goes on. "I don't know what the hell it is. I mean, it's the furthest thing from anything I am. But I've literally ... " he slams his fist into his palm.
"But Kate and Jessica are both fiercely strong women - I was more worried for my own f---in' safety half the time."
Farrell will next be seen in November in Seven Psychopaths, Martin McDonagh's reportedly similiarly violent and funny follow-up to In Bruges.
"I was there," he says, "but I have no idea what the film's gonna be."
However it turns out, and whatever chapter Farrell enters next, there are no regrets.
"Because it has us here today and I'm fine with it all. There's a lesson in everything," he says.
Oh, except for that one time as a teenager he modelled underwear on Irish television.
"And I'm not talking boxer shorts. A f---ing thong."
Cue YouTube meltdown.
"No," he wails, "it's not on there. Thank God. They know about it, I just don't think they can find it. If someone finds it, please blackmail me, I'll give you whatever you want."
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