Colin Farrell
Interview By: ZakSantucci
Colin Farrell has got to be the ultimate bad boy.
Just naturally. While most of our interviews go
rather tamely because of the presence of radio, my man
tended to drop the f-bomb on a few occasions. He
didn't go far enough to put out a cigarette out in
somebody's eye or yell at us in a drunken rage. In
fact, he's just a down to earth Irish guy that doesn't
really change his persona just because he's an actor.
His character was not the topic of a whole bunch of
conversation when we got to sit down with him, but the
character of Alexander was: 'Me personally, I read a
lot of literature, all of which is primarily hearsay
when it comes to the character of the man. There are
certain things that are known and accepted as being
fact and respected timelines of certain events.
Certain battles, the death of his father, him being
crowned as king, his death and so on and so forth.
But with just respect to the character's point of view
there was a lot of filling in to do. I read bits and
pieces of many different books, none of which I
finished I just dipped in and out of a shitload of
books. But basically you go back to the script you go
back to what Oliver wrote. And that's got to be the
gospel at all times, because there's such conflicting
opinions, some historians write him as an absolute
tyrant and some write him as an incredible hero of
antiquity.'
As far as Oliver Stone is concerned (who seems
to be the primary subject of the buzz surrounding
Alexander), Colin Farrell had a lot to
say about the man: 'What do you want to know man'
He's a cunt, he's unpatriotic, he's an obnoxious
animal who loses his mind seven times a day.'
Actually, the Irish actor was kidding. 'He is an
incredibly strong man, he's highly intelligent, he is
an absolute animal on the set. He's just a bull of a
man. I mean that in the good sense. He just from sun
up to sundown and beyond both, he never stops, his
brain never stops, he never stops asking questions, he
never stops poking holes in things where he thinks
maybe the foundation is soft enough to do that and
then refilling those holes. He pushes all the actors
very hard, and he pushes the crew very hard, but as
did Alexander he pushes himself even harder than
anyone.' Farrell had trouble being mad at Stone
because he put so much of himself into the movie. He
even stated if asked to work with him again, he would
do it without reading the script. He admires the
man's art and his cautious ability to survey all of
humanity. Such dedication to a director after one
movie really shows a great experience.
However, there were a bit of hard times. The actors
had to prepare physically for a lot of scenes: 'All
that stuff, Protein shakes, and lifting weights and
all that boring nonsense., that I did for awhile. The
boot camp was also a very important physical part of
us. And We were learning certain strategies and
tactics and getting certain military tactics like the
phalanx maneuvers down psychologically for all the
boys out there. There ended up being 170 men at boot
camp. It was highly important, it was still fine, but
for three weeks we lived pretty stringently out in the
desert. Food rations were very, very small. There
were seriously high levels of fatigue, frustration,
all the boys were missing their families, wives,
mothers, sons, daughters. And it was tough, but it
brought us all together as well so that boot camp
thing was highly important on a number of different
levels.' However, in such a movie, Farrell admits
that it is the drama and the tense subject that really
is difficult to handle. The physical stuff is just
that, physical 'stuff'. 'Each scene is going to be
highly tense, very volatile and the character's gonna
be going through some event that's either changing
their life or out to change their life or has changed
their life. So the stakes were very high in every
single scene and every single moment so I think
that's, just remaining true to those beats, each
scene's going to be highly dramatic anyway.'
In addition to just being dramatic, Alexander was a
very violent war general that killed people upon
people. Farrell simply credits that to growing up
with violent parents in violent times. He helps the
movie in criticizing the fact that the Macedonians
thought they were superior to all these peoples of the
east and solved their problems with violence.
However, he points out how Alexander, although
starting everything with violence, wanted to treat
these people as equals. Even with respect to his
violence towards women, the actor admits, The violence
after the wedding ceremony with Roxanna, that's just
some rough sex.'
My favorite part of the interview was talking about
Colin Farrell's involvement in future James Bond
movies or Miami Vice. He just didn't know about
either, and seemed humorously annoyed at all the
questions about it. (humorously in the way that he
thought it was a bit funny himself) For example, when
asked about Bond he stated, 'Pierce has fucking hung
me, man. Pierce is telling everyone I'm going to be
saying 'shaken not stirred'. I was with some friends
the other day and they wouldn't shut up (hums theme)
in the pub. I was goin' 'fuck off'. I haven't heard
a thing about it. That was only cause he was messing
around with you because I'm Irish.' Damn, he kisses
his mother with that mouth'
ZakSantucci@TheCinemaSource.com
