Colin Farrell

Interview By: Andrea Tuccillo
AndreaTuccillo@TheCinemaSource.com

The new year has brought some fresh new movie roles for Colin Farrell. After a short absence from the big screen, Farrell is making a comeback under the guidance of some of the most acclaimed writer/directors in the business. In January, he appeared with Ewan McGregor in Woody Allen's tragic drama Cassandra's Dream. Now, he's starring alongside Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson in Martin McDonagh's dark comedy In Bruges.

Farrell and Gleeson play Irish hit men named Ray and Ken, respectively. After a job goes wrong, their boss (Fiennes) sends them to Bruges (pronounced 'broozh')'one of the oldest cities in Belgium. The two out-of-place tourists find themselves in some truly bizarre situations as they wait for their boss's next call.

'The whole job was an adventure; taking that script and realizing it was a wonderful adventure to be on,' Farrell says. 'Bruges itself, it's a beautiful city; a very magical place. But when we arrived there it was the middle of winter so it was dark everyday at 4:00 in the afternoon; there was nobody on the streets. It really had sort of a desolate feel to it. And then when we picked up in the spring there were tourists everywhere.'

The film has some very comedic moments, but it also has some heavy, serious moments, making it a hard genre to peg. 'The script was very hard to pin down,' says Farrell. 'It was very hard to have kind of a general, macro feeling about the whole thing. There was so much dichotomy going on with all the characters and Ray particularly, there was this innocence that was maintained throughout even though he has made the decision. Being hit men is something that they do, but it's not who they are. Even Brendan's character, Ken, who has been doing it for a lot longer and wears the suit a lot better and with a lot more comfort, even he kind of doubts it and finds out at the end that it's not who he is and not who he wants to be. Even if he's going to die in this last moment, he's going to die a free man for the first time in a long time.'

Farrell further describes his own character. 'Ray gets away with a lot,' he says. 'I think people come away from the film feeling that his intent was never really malicious which is bizarre to say. He shot a priest with intent and then accidentally killed a child. But I just think he's someone that's incredibly innocent. It's bizarre how much he gets away with. There's a purity and an innocence to the way he expresses himself and the way he talks and the way he views the world, very much like a child. He doesn't have any censorship. So how did I do that' I just went for it; it was good fun.'

While he admits that he thinks his character is suicidal throughout most of the film, he was able to separate that from his real life. 'You try as much as you can do separate one from the other,' he says. 'One being reality the other being a heightened depiction of. Which this was a heightened depiction of reality. I mean I don't know myself any characters that talk like this or act like this; that was the beautiful thing about it. There was a certain kind of fairytale aspect to the film which isn't just the city where it's shot, but the way the characters interact.'

Farrell certainly had a good interaction with his co-star Gleeson. The two native Irishmen clicked, although Farrell says a common heritage doesn't always translate into chemistry. 'With this particular Irishman, yes,' he says. 'But that has more to do with Brendan than with his lineage. Having said that he's also incredibly Irish and he's all the best things about an Irishman. He's incredibly lyrical in his speech and he's got a very warm heart but he's very strong-willed as well. I'm sure there's Irish people that I'd work with where I wouldn't have as much of a connection as a couple of Americans I've worked with or somebody from Thailand that I've worked with.'

Working with director McDonagh also proved rewarding. 'Martin had a definite idea of why each character was saying what they were saying and when they were saying it, but he didn't come in forcefully to stamp his will on the piece or on the actors who were portraying the characters. He was incredibly open, like more so than I thought he would be. In a moment of judgment I thought he'd come in and say, 'This is it, say it like this' and it would almost be an iambic pentameter to how he was directing. But he wasn't. He was really, really open.'

According to Farrell, the people of Bruges were quite welcoming. During filming, people would often gather on set to watch. 'They seemed very excited and genuinely intrigued,' he says. '[They were] just happy that their city'which has an outpost feel to it, has an unexplored feel that time has stood still and that it's a forgotten place'was getting a bit of recognition. And then you wonder when they see the film what the fuck will they do' They'll be like, 'Bastards! They fooled us!' But Martin showed it to the mayor and the minister for tourism and stuff and they loved it.'

So what happens when Farrell returns to his own hometown' Do the people of Dublin roll out the red carpet for this famous actor' 'I bring my own,' Farrell jokes, tongue firmly planted in cheek. 'I've kept my feet on the ground; I don't let other people do my shit. I roll out my own red carpet.'