Profile Colin FarrellColin Farrell upset Hollywood moralists by showing that a happy place may exist between excess and abstinence. Now he's in rehab, the puritans feel vindicated, writes Donald Clarke
The New World, the upcoming film from that great cinematic brooder, Terence Malick, tells the story of the encounter between certain Native Americans, notably one Pocahontas, and English explorer John Smith. If earlier Malick films, such as Badlands and The Thin Red Line, are any guide, The New World, which opens in the US on Christmas Day, will be sleepy, enigmatic and punctuated with elliptical mutterings from its lead characters. The film will also, one assumes, give viewers pause to contemplate the consequences of a clash between two dissonant cultures.
Colin Farrell, who appears as Smith, has, over the last five years, had plenty of opportunity to ponder how attitudes to personal morality differ between the old and new worlds. John Smith was not, himself, a puritan, but those that followed were and their legacy can be observed in the periodic attacks of the vapours that overpower the American media when a movie star is seen having one too many Tio Pepes.
Farrell, who was raised among the not-particularly-mean streets of Castleknock, Dublin, is a 29-year-old man who likes a drink, a cigarette and the odd bit of good loving. In his home town, such proclivities, when held by somebody of his age, are barely deemed worthy of comment. In certain parts of Los Angeles, however, they are grounds for an intervention. No profile of Farrell - including, it seems, this one - is complete without the inclusion of the word "hellraiser".
"I got the title already, just by proxy to Ireland," he said last year. "You're Irish in Los Angeles and you drink a couple of pints and you're considered f***ing edgy. It doesn't take much to be a bad boy. I use bad language and I have casual sex and a few beers and all of a sudden I'm a bad boy. But I know I'm not. Hitler was a bad boy."
Unhappily for those who have despaired at the wearying attempts to portray him as Hades-bound, last week news arrived which suggested the new puritans may have been right all along: Colin Farrell is receiving treatment for exhaustion and "medication dependency".
A spell in Shady Acres Home for Chemical Confusion is a necessary plot point in the story of substance abuse as told by Hollywood publicists. Movie stars' lives should be morality tales. If you drink too much Jack Daniel's and shag too many Jane Daniels, then one of two things must follow: death or rehab. You either drown in a pool of vomit or sober up and spend your remaining decades blathering vacantly about spirituality. A tough, tough choice.
Colin Farrell has, to this point, infuriated the hoity-toity moral absolutists by refusing to slip into a trough of despair following his third pint. He appeared to demonstrate that, contrary to current Californian orthodoxies, a happy place may exist between lunatic excess and total abstinence. Yet he understands the perils.
"I ended up on a shrink's couch and he told me to write down how much I did in a week," he told the Radio Times in 2003, while discussing adventures in the early 1990s. "Twenty Es, four grams of coke, six of speed, half an ounce of hash, three bottles of Jack Daniel's, 12 bottles of red wine, 60 pints and 280 fags. He looked at me and said: 'No wonder you're depressed.' "
How dare he, having offered us this chilling litany, refuse to set aside the booze and join some barmy religion! Still worse for the hand-wringers, Farrell has managed to live a dizzyingly active and sometimes exotic sex life, while still behaving decently towards former lovers. Some cynics expected wrangling when, in early 2003, Kim Bordenave, a model friend of the actor's, claimed to be having his baby. But Farrell promptly acknowledged the child as his and has remained supportive.
Relations with Amelia Warner, the actor to whom he was briefly married in 2001, are also said to be cordial.
EVEN HIS ODDER romantic adventures have a sort of charm to them. Earlier this year, Eileen Atkins, the fabulously flinty septuagenarian English actor, reported that Farrell, her co-star in the upcoming Ask the Dust, had made a serious attempt to seduce her.
"Three weeks before my 70th birthday, a simply stunning, gorgeous big film star came into my hotel room for sex without strings. I spent two and a half hours saying no, but it cheered me up fantastically," Atkins said.
Are Farrell and Atkins playing a prank on the media here? Either way, it reflects rather well on them both.
The purse-mouthed moralists would at least like to be able to say that the distractions in Farrell's life have damaged his professional standing. But, until last year's hilariously misguided Alexander - for which Oliver Stone rather than Arthur Guinness should shoulder the blame - Farrell's career had been progressing very nicely indeed.
Colin was one of four children born to Rita and Eamonn Farrell, a former Shamrock Rovers footballer. He seems to have been furiously ambitious in his youth and, in between spells as a travelling line-dancer, auditioned unsuccessfully for Boyzone. His performance in Owen McPolin's low-budget feature, Drinking Crude, attracted the attention of Lisa Cook of the Lisa Richards agency, who signed him up. A spell at the Gaiety School of Acting followed before Farrell secured a role in the twinkly TV series, Ballykissangel.
His really big break came when Joel Schumacher cast him as a grunt in his 2000 Vietnam drama, Tigerland. Whatever else you say about Schumacher, his talents as a talent- spotter cannot be denied and Farrell got well and truly noticed. Minority Report, Phone Booth and Intermission followed.
Far from hurting his career, Farrell's perceived enthusiasm for the fleshpots brought welcome attention to his various projects. Russell Crowe's boozy exploits initially propelled his advance in similar fashion, before a certain irascibility - phone-flinging and so on - began to sour the image.
Farrell always seemed nicer than that. He may be an Olympic-level swearer, but he tends to keep his fists in his pockets. Here was a fellow who could have a good time and still progress happily up the ladder.
Until now, the Pharisees say. This week he has finally been forced to own up to his "problem", they thunder. Well, upon closer inspection it transpires that Farrell is, in fact, being treated for a dependency on medication he was prescribed to combat a back injury. We may not yet be watching Farrell's transformation into Ned Flanders.
ANYWAY, HOLLYWOOD WILL forgive Farrell anything if he generates ticket sales. Equally, no amount of carousing could be as destructive to his saleability as was the financial and critical meltdown that was Alexander.
The New World may prove to be a hard sell for a general audience. In August, however, Colin will appear alongside Jamie Foxx in Michael Mann's elaborate - irony-free, we are told - big-screen adaptation of the director's own hit TV series, Miami Vice. The production has been much troubled by budget overruns and weather crises, but few studios have lost money blowing up motor cars for a summer audience.
If Colin's Sonny Crockett brings home the bacon, the puritans may be forced to fume in silence.
Who is he?
Darkly attractive Irish actor and swearer whose every exhalation is deemed worthy of comment in the press
Why is he in the news?
Following years of "hellraising", it was announced last week that Farrell is being treated for exhaustion and dependency on prescription medication
Most appealing characteristic?
Disconcerting honesty about all aspects of his personal and professional life in interviews
Least appealing characteristic?
Propensity to insert the f-word in every available syntactic cranny
Most likely to say?
A series of words and phrases which The Irish Times style book requires writers to render in asterisks
Least likely to say?
"Well, normally I would, but I have an early start tomorrow"