A big movie star doesn’t walk into a plush Beverly Hills hotel suite carrying a plate of spaghetti.
But Colin Farrell does.
A big movie star doesn’t interrupt a string of career-making roles in big-budget movies, including “S.W.A.T,” “Minority Report” and the upcoming Oliver Stone epic “Alexander,” with an understated performance as a sexually ambiguous character in a low-budget drama called “A Home at the End of the World.”
But Colin Farrell does.
In fact, the Irish actor doesn’t follow a lot of Hollywood’s rules of stardom.
“I have never pursued movie stardom, even though it seems as if I have,” the ravenous and fast-talking Farrell, 28, says between bites of his pasta.
He cleans the plate in less than a minute and then washes it down with a long swig of dark Irish beer. Satiated, he places the empty plate on a dresser and fires up a Camel Light. It will not be his last.
“I don’t care about being a movie star,” he says. “I like to work. If it turns out that by working at what I love, I become a movie star, then so be it. I’m not going to fight it.”
The tabloids and gossip hounds have had a field day with Farrell ever since he started acting in American movies about five years ago.
At one time or another, he has been linked to almost every available actress in town and even to some who weren’t available. He recently had a son with a woman he’s dated, and his drinking and partying have become the stuff of Hollywood legend.
Farrell doesn’t bother to deny any of it, although he insists that the media gives him too much credit.
“I’m single, I’m rich, and I’m a movie star,” he says. “If I can’t have fun at this, what’s the point?”
Farrell plays the title character in Stone’s holiday-season film “Alexander,” which should elevate Farrell to a new level of stardom in Hollywood.
So, why take a sharp right turn from that star course by appearing in “A Home at the End of the World”?
It is a small, Oscar-quality film written by Michael Cunningham, who wrote “The Hours,” and directed by Michael Mayer, whose last assignment was the Broadway musical “Thoroughly Modern Millie.”
Hardly the kind of film one would expect from a rising superstar.
“I read the script, and it was so powerful, I told my agent that I had to be in it,” Farrell said. “I didn’t care whether it was good for my career. It was wonderful work.”
The film follows the lives of two childhood friends who, with a woman played by Robin Wright Penn, form an unusual family. Farrell’s character, Bobby, is beset by early tragedies that turn him into a manchild who lives by his emotions. He may or may not be gay, and Farrell’s well-publicized nude scene has been taken out of the final version of the film.
Farrell wanted desperately to play the role, but there was one major hurdle: The director never heard of him.
“I got this call that Colin Farrell read the script and would love to get an offer to play Bobby,” Mayer recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, that’s great. Who’s Colin Farrell?’ “
“At the time, all his big work was still in the can,” said Mayer, who said if Farrell wanted the part, he would need to read for the director.
In Hollywood, actors at Farrell’s level don’t have to audition for roles anymore, but the actor did not hesitate to accept the challenge. He sat with the director one afternoon and read lines from the script. By the end of the meeting, he had the role.
“He’s got the talent, but he can’t hide the movie star qualities either,” Mayer said. “When his face is on the screen, you can’t take your eyes off him. And that is the definition of a movie star.”
A fast ride to Hollywood
The son of a professional Irish soccer player, Colin Farrell was the youngest of four children. He dreamed about following in his father’s footsteps until he discovered girls. Girls didn’t leave time for training.
So he followed his older brother into acting school and soon found work in small films and the theater in his native Dublin and London.
Kevin Spacey saw him in a London play and suggested him to director Joel Schumacher, who was casting “Tigerland,” a film about a group of recruits sent to participate in war games to prepare them for Vietnam.
Farrell next played Jesse James in “American Outlaws,” followed by the role of a soldier opposite Bruce Willis in “Hart’s War,” the terrorized executive in “Phone Booth,” the spy-in-training with his acting idol Al Pacino in “The Recruit,” the bald, tattooed villain in “Daredevil,” the heroic police officer in “S.W.A.T” and Tom Cruise’s nemesis in Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report.”
“I have only been in the U.S. for five years, but I have had an inordinate amount of good fortune,” Farrell said. “Almost to the point of being sickening.
“But I like the choices I’ve made. I chose each role for a good reason. If you pick work for the right reasons, then you’re doing something right.
“I haven’t chosen any work for the money, although I made a ridiculous amount of money for ‘S.W.A.T.’ But it wasn’t for the money; I wanted to do something light, and Samuel L. Jackson was in it. That was reason enough for me.”
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Kris Karnopp (kkarnopp@tribune.com)
