The movie Colin Farrell calls a “perfect piece of cinema”
Over the past 20 years, Colin Farrell has cemented himself firmly in the wall of Irish acting talent. With a career running parallel to that of fellow Irish sensation Cillian Murphy, Colin Farrell made his breakthrough in 2002 after appearing in Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi movie Minority Report. Following such exposure, the actor took on several lead roles over the 2000s, culminating with In Bruges, the first of many successful collaborations with Martin McDonagh.
For his appearance in McDonagh’s 2008 dark comedy opposite Brendan Gleeson, Farrell won a Golden Globe Award for ‘Best Actor’. Stimulated by such success, McDonagh has made a habit of reuniting with Farrell, first with 2012’s Seven Psychopaths and much more recently with The Banshees of Inisherin.
For his role in 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin, Farrell and his returning co-star Gleeson were nominated for Academy Awards and Golden Globes, with the former taking home another Golden Globe for his leading role. While Farrell missed out on an Oscar earlier in 2023, his career only seems to be on the steady climb with an attitude to match.
In a recent interview feature with The Hollywood Reporter, Colin Farrell told fellow actor Adam Sandler how a small yet pivotal piece of advice helped him achieve his early goals and continues to inspire him today.
“Pierce Brosnan got me in a bear hug when I was… I think it was before I had done [2000 movie] Tigerland, so it was before I had done my first American film. He just picked me up, and he said, ‘Keep being bold.’ Now I don’t know if he knew I was bold or whether I was bold at the time, but it was a lovely thing to hear from a man whose work I was aware of, especially as an Irishman, for all those years.”
“For me now, at 46, ‘What is bold?’ I think the boldest thing I can do, or any of us can do, in life, is to look – like a two-prong thing – to locate what has meaning for us and to really pursue with as much honesty, and even [with] the discomfort that can come about from honesty, to pursue the things that really hold meaning for us. Whether that’s being a friend, a father, an artist, a lover… all the above. So, keep being bold, yeah. Life can be hard. Life can sometimes just want you to lie down under it and do nothing and not leave the house. Just keep being bold. Push through.”
Alongside his inspiring encounter with Brosnan and ostensibly a fondness for some of the actor’s classic James Bond appearances, Farrell’s career has been informed by a refined taste in cinema. In May 2016, the Irish actor was invited to select his five favourite movies in a feature for Rotten Tomatoes.
Among Farrell’s choices were age-old classics, such as David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and picks based on “sheer entertainment,” namely Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. Falling somewhere in between these two was Bruce Robinson’s comedy-drama of 1987, Withnail and I.
“Oh man, is there a funnier and more poignant film that captures the anarchic irreverence of that period? It’s just perfect, from start to finish, in my book,” Farrell opined. “Ridiculously quotable with mad, perfect performances across the board. Richard E Grant is pure genius, but everyone in the film gives amazing and hilarious and heartbreaking performances. Again, I think loneliness and isolation, and a desire to belong play big parts in this one. The story is as much a love story between the two leads as anything, with a very sad break-up of sorts taking place at the very end, with Withnail left out in the rain.”
Watch the trailer for Withnail and I below.