The Watch - Ep. 38: 'The Andy Greenwald Podcast' With Colin Farrell

Episode Date: May 12, 2016

Andy Greenwald talks with Colin Farrell about his trippy, brilliant new film, 'The Lobster,' as well as 'True Detective' and his many mustaches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Andy Greenwald podcast. Hello, my name is Andy Greenwald. Welcome to my podcast. The Andy Greenwald podcast is now exclusively to be found under the Watch podcast feed. The Watch is the show I do with Chris Ryan every Monday, and I hope you guys listen to that too. To get The Watch and to get more Andy Greenwald podcast interviews, you can subscribe to the watch under The Watch at iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, all your normal places. While you're at it, you could subscribe to the Ringer newsletter, too, because we're all part

of the Ringer podcast network people. Go to the ringer.com and subscribe and get lots of stuff in your inbox every week. This is an exciting day for me here in the New York studios, here at Earwolf Studios. One of my all-time favorite actors was nice enough to sit down across from me here on this very big wood table. We have Colin Farrell. Now, Colin Farrell is a favorite actor is not always a popular choice, but those who pay close attention to movies kind of nod when I say it. Because here's the thing about Colin Farrell. He has not always been in the greatest movies, although sometimes he has.

But he is always the most interesting thing in just about any movie that he happens to be in. I wrote a piece about him for Granlin right when Granlin launched in 2011, basically saying that Colin Farrell was cursed with this very unique circumstance where he was a brilliant, chittery, manic, alive character actor, trapped in the body and career of a leading man. Since I wrote that, he seems to have completely embraced the best parts of his talent and just delivered terrific performances across the board in a number of movies, everything from horrible bosses and Andine

And to even the much maligned true detective season two His moustachioed Ray Valcora was absolutely the best part of it On May 13th, A24 Films is releasing Colin's newest film It's called The Lobster, and this is a doozy. This is one of the most exhilarating and unsettling films I've seen in a very long time. It's the first English-language film from the Greek filmmaker Jorgos Lentemos,

and I apologize to all my Greek listeners for butchering that. Colin, I get into the specifics a little bit in our conversation, but just to let you know, this is a movie set in a sort of dystopic future in which single people are herded up and put into a hotel where they have 45 days to fall in love again with a well-suited mate or they are turned into a wild animal. That is literally turned into an animal of their choosing, hence the title of the lobster. Colin is amazing in this movie. He rocks an even more amazing mustache. So total thrill to talk to Colin Farrell. I loved it. Hope to do it again sometime soon.

definitely check out the lobster when it's in theaters. It's beginning May 13th in North America. And sit back. Let the Scottish band churches play you in to my interview with Colin Farrell. Do you characterize this as a lovely day of Irish weather for today? I was just saying the same thing. This is 250 days of the year for me growing up, which was depressing if they're that plentiful. But it's nice.

When you get days like this in L.A., which are few and far between, it's pure magic. That's the thing that I'll never understand because I see this, and I'm resentful and angry that it's not warm springtime. But everyone, all my friends in Los Angeles, are saying you don't understand how much you appreciate. It's dark just because it allows you to have more than just a happy feeling. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that accurate? Yeah, big time.

Yeah, yeah. It's not a very melancholy city. So the day like today invites that in, which is highly unusual. But don't you think if you grew up with the melancholy raining down on you, you have enough? That you be cured of it? Like you've stored up enough? Well, it depends.

I mean, the memory is short-lived, you know? That's right. Seriously, that sun beats down on you for 10 years. I've been in L.A. now and you forget about how. depressing it was to walk around with rain-soaked jeans, you know, 10 o'clock in the morning and it's pitch dark outside. So is it nostalgic now to be in this weather for you? Can be, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I think we've started, by the way. Oh, yeah, great. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, I'm joined here by one of my very favorite actors in the whole world, Colin Farrell. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Andy. We're here to talk about this movie, The Lobster, which is releasing by the Always Always Interesting 824 films.

Yeah, they're doing good stuff, man. It's May 13th, it's released here. I'll blow my own horn, but they have taste. I think it's their horn. You're blowing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Thank you. By proxy, I was worrying that I was wrapping my mouth around myself. No, no.

Unfortunately, it's not a video podcast. Yes, indeed. Where's the iPhone? Turn it on. The visuals. I said a little bit about the film in the intro, but this is absolutely one of the most exhilarating and unsettling films I've seen in a very long time. That's great.

It stakes out rules that are sort of preposterous on paper and then, you know, spends the rest of the film making you believe in them. But yet have a complete logic to them. And that's what you'll notice if you see Dogtooth as well. I think Yorgas's first film that he co-wrote with the same writer, he co-wrote the lobster, Ephemus Philippa, is that they create these really absurd worlds that are, you know, at turns both very recognizable in an allegorical way to the worlds that we live in,

but at the same time are incredibly unusual and have a very strict coda of rules they live under. Right, all of it is considered. I don't think you could be this absurdist without having hemmed yourself in in some ways. Absolutely, and there was, like in the films you saw, there's a place called The Hotel, which if you are single as an adult, you're sent to the hotel and you have 45 days

to find a partner and you find a partner a mate based on some shared characteristics whether it's the limp or whether it's a speech impediment or short-sightedness and when we were doing the scene to check into the hotel in the film

there was a piece of paper at the check-in desk that was the rules for the hotel which will never be seen by any member of the audience was never shot as an insert in the film but I read all the rules and the logic

it was all so perfect seamless not a whole whole whole in the logic. It's just so bizarre. No, they're incredible. These are the details that I think would allow you to take the chance and trust these filmmakers to take you on this journey. Because I often think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like one of the more underappreciated skills that you need in your business is the skill to be able to trust that the people who gave you the material, that sparkles or is bizarre, fascinating on the page, that they have the ability to translate it into a film. Yeah, absolutely. That's always the magic, right? That's the trick.

Obviously you said you saw Yorgas' first film or his second film that you admired Dogtooth. I think it was his first film. That's his first film. But what was it that got you from reading this thing

and probably marveling and laughing to committing? I mean, it's very seldom that, for me and my experience anyway, it's very seldom that you come across a cinematic voice that is as unique an individual as Yorgas's.

You know, they're not to even draw comparisons with his work in these filmmakers, but there are filmmakers like Kubrick or even modern day for me, Thomas Anderson or Spike Jones or, they're, you know, particularly Charlie Kaufman today, but there are filmmakers who have a very particular language that is just unique to them. And so reading this script was like nothing I'd ever read before. I mean, the absurdity in it, ultimately the kind of emotional investment that I had in the script

by the end of it, but the absurdity of the world and the uniqueness of it and how particular the rules are within which the world exists was just astonishing to me. And I didn't know when I read the script. I was like, how does anyone say these things and own things? them as normal. And I think that was one of the, look, you saw on the film that the performances across the board, I don't know if you'd call them stilted or, I don't know if you'd call them, you know, flatly affected or monotone in delivery, I think, all the above.

But there was no kind of general consensus. We didn't sit together as a cast of actors and go, okay, let's all deliver these lines in as boring and passive a way as possible. And Yorgas didn't give us that direction. But I think what they write is so extreme. the situations are so extreme and the characters psychological standpoint, which by the way, none of them are aware of, but are represented in such an extreme way that the worst thing you could do as an actor is try and imbue the dialogue with a conventional, contemporary,

you know, movement. Right. You know, so you just try and let the language is so spare, but so consequential, every single word and the situations are the same. So you just try and stay under it and not paint any of the lines with too much and let the script. do the work for you. That's what I was wondering about because there's some scenes specifically scenes that you share with

John C. Riley and Ben Wishaw, both of whom are just extraordinary in the film too, that they're just ice skating on the absolute edge of absurdity and I wondered if the, but it's controlled, it's contained, it doesn't become out and out comedy.

It just suggests comedy in a very beautiful way. Was it a lighthearted set in those moments? No, it really was. And I mean, you know, you know, as I'm sure you've heard before in some version of, you know, it's not comedy

if the players are in on the joke really. Right. You know, so, you know, unless it's Tommy Cooper

or something like that, but, or Benny Hill, you know, but, so this was, you know,

the absurdity and the humor is because the characters are so locked into the world that they find themselves in and they have no idea at all

of the absurdity of the rules that they're living under. They have no idea at all of the absurdity of the relationships that they're a party to.

And some of it was really funny. Some of it was hard to keep a straight face doing some of it. I mean, particularly this seen with me and Rachel, Rachel's character where we're at the home of the loner leader

and we start neckin on the couch. Her parents are playing beautiful because the guitar. Yeah, indeed, I could not keep a straight face. I think it was very awkward. But no, you just play it for real. Absolutely. It was like that thing I did in Bruges in this film, you know, in Bruges years ago. We're going to get to that.

And people were saying, God, it must have been a laugh a minute. And I was kind of, yeah, there was some funny stuff, but a lot of it was actually, I mean, I was playing such a depressed character. He was so despondent and suicidal that it wasn't. that fun. I'm not going to say it was being in a coal mine for 50 cents an hour, but it wasn't as fun as the film ended up being, you know. Right. Well, you also have to respect the emotional life of the characters and not comment on it and give them, there's a certain nobility to these characters who, you know, and specifically to your character, David, who is so clearly bruised. Yeah. But they're all children. They're children. Yeah. All of them.

emotional children. I mean, they're really emotional children. None of them have any idea. I think in a more heightened way than the majority of the people who exist around me in my life from the world that we find ourselves inhabiting. I think they have no idea of the length by which they have unexplored choice around them. And I think a lot of us in life, myself included, don't realize that we have as much choice as we do, whether it's the choice to how we respond to people. And, you know, we're very much state dependent. We very much go off the environment we find ourselves in.

And maybe as the years past, you realize that you actually don't have to go off the environment. You can be your own kind of self-sufficient environment within yourself. Excuse me for sound of tweed. but it's true and these characters have no idea that they have any power, any control over their emotional, intellectual are physical lives of course as we've said because of the rules of this society and it's very patriarchal, you know, so it's...

David keeps accepting whatever structure is put on. He's eager for it. Blindly, absolutely. He's one hand is handcuffed at one point and he bravely and nobly brushes his teeth with one hand. I mean, just going along with it. There's very little rebellion. Even the rebellion itself is quite...

Completely guileless character, completely clueless. It was fun. I had your seven psychopaths co-star Sam Rockwell here in the chair recently just a couple weeks ago. I love Sam. He was great to talk to. I love some. And I was trying to figure out, and I spoke to him. I talked about how much I love the way he, some of his, the best parts of his performance exist between the lines of dialogue and what he finds in there.

I was trying to think of what I admire specifically about your performances. And I was coming across this idea that if Sam is between the words, I always find that you are behind them, that there is some sort of emotion that is lurking just beneath the script. That is so palpable and tangible, and it's there in this, you know, this nobility of David, this desire to try. I was wondering about how you, there's the broad question of it, how you bring that emotion out, but that's sort of a general question. I guess, is there a way that you locate that emotion within each character? I wondered if it had something to do with the physical choices you make or, you know, sometimes there's a mustache that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you are the Coco Chanel of Mustaches, by the way.

I've rocked a few men. It's always the right mustache. I don't know about that, but it's always a mustache. I don't know if it's the right one, but it's always, there's a commitment there. I don't know. I mean, I think you can't but bring, you know, potentially the dearth of your own emotional, your own emotional life and imagination to the work that you do. So, you know, you heighten certain aspects of yourself and you lower certain aspects of yourself.

And inevitably, you have to allow the character and the script to tell you to offer up, the canvas upon which, look, it's, to me, it's kind of imagination multiplied by emotion. That's the whole job, you know. So it's your own experience, but it's your own experience that's filtered through the visor of another person's life, another person's socioeconomic background and all that things. But if you, I think one of the, my favorite things about being an actor, you know, it's great. And if you've worked as I have in the years that I have, you get to travel and all that kind of stuff. And it's always interesting to work with new coups and have a common goal and all that stuff.

but to, it kind of, I don't think allows you to, for me anyway, it supports any compassion you may have naturally within you as a human being because it just asks you to look around you in the world and just see, and I've always, as a kid before I was an actor, like genuinely, I was always just really, really fascinated by human beings and by our behavior. You know, when I was 17, I used to go out to the airport in Dublin. I remember at like 2 o'clock in the morning in my mother's car and the little black golf she had, folks around golf,

and I'd drive out and park the car, and I'd go and get a cup of coffee, and I'd sit at arrivals, and I'd watch families come back, and I'd watch some people uncomfortable with each other and other people embrace each other as if their lives depended on that very next touch. And so I've always found, like, just the general themes

of loneliness, isolation, connectivity, purpose, belonging, lack of the above, to be fascinating. And so that's the best thing about the job. And regards to being behind the lines, I think that's one of the interesting things about Terry Malick and why Terry uses so much voiceover. It's because Terry feels and sees and hears artifice in the words that we speak to each other.

He knows that those words that we speak to each other. I think, I assume, I propose, go through a whole set of filtrations before they arrive in our mouth and are dispelled from our mouth to whoever we're speaking to in society. And I think he understands that there is a deeper purpose or a deeper truth that exists in the internal dialogue

of a human being. And so that's a long-winded way of saying nothing, but also saying that, yeah, there's a lot more that exists beneath or behind dialogue than exists actually in the dialogue itself. And dialogue is beautiful. And someone like Martin McDonough who wrote seven psychopaths did you refer to. And in Bruges. And in Bruges and all the extraordinary plays he's done.

Martin's dialogue is extraordinary. But what it does is it allows you also to focus on the unwritten, which will always be the actors kind of, you know, bounty. It's interesting because I think that the curiosity you're suggesting to me also, creates this idea of empathy because we're told in our lives and certainly in therapy and things like that, that's all that behavior is all that matters. That's all people have to operate off of as your behavior. That's how you're known. And of course, all that behavior is fueled internally by the emotional state. And it's very tricky to project or mind-reying someone else's.

Of course, and the behavior is the train arriving at the station. It's not the whole journey before that. Right. You know, it's not the station that train departed from and it's not the length of track that the train has traveled. It's the train arriving in. So behavior, yes, is interesting as a starting point if you want to start at the end and work backwards. But behavior is inspired and compelled by all these internal machinations that take place long before the behavior arrives. So with that in mind as an actor, that's the fascinating thing. You take what you find on the page. You take the behavior. You take the dialogue. You take the situational dynamic and you work backwards and try and get beneath it and under. And that's an actor's work.

And I think that sounds heavy and it's personal. It's fun. Yeah, but it's really fun. That's good to hear. That's no. Genuinely it is. And I mean, I've, I've, I've, you know, in the few years I've been doing this, I've played some characters that have been having a really horrible time, like really horrible time, you know, and some bad characters and stuff. And it's always, even if it's a bit sad to do it from time to time, even if it is artifice and even, look, if you scream into the wind for 10 hours in a day, you'll be a madman.

So if you do these things over and over again for a 12 or 14-hour shooting day, of course it's not real life. And as I said, it's an exercise in glorified artifice, but it does go in. And so, but it's still, it's still a real privilege to be able to do a job that is challenging as I find it to be and where you were trying to work out some kind of semblance of understanding human behavior. How are you able to, and maybe this has changed as your career has gone on and you've

gotten more experience, but to be able to focus on that process for yourself that's necessary. While walling out everything else that's going on. And what I mean everything else, I mean the fun of the crew, but also when I think about something like True Detective Season 2, you're in the middle of this maelstrom of hype and expectation and pressure and money and, you know, it's more than one train on more than one track on a production like that. Yeah.

And yet, you know, your performance and that was my favorite thing in it because Ray had a life before the show began and you could read it. I loved that character. It was a real person that you brought out of this. I loved them. That was fun to do. Yeah, no, I was aware because, I mean, I myself was a fan of the first season and I was such strong writing and such strong performances

and the direction was exquisite as well and I knew that by and large there'd be a lot of sharpened knives sure you know because yeah for sure I get it critics like me yeah for sure absolutely critics like me I was in it but you know you just you begin to learn

I think through the years I began to learn that in respect to criticism and you know the either the general public or the critics appraisal of what you do if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody around doesn't make a sound, no. If you don't look, it doesn't exist.

And maybe that's me wearing blinkers and maybe that's being an idealist or trying to live in a bubble, but it's a bubble I'm okay living with and it's a bubble I prefer to inhabit because I just want it to be, you know, as simplistic and pure as it sounds. I just want it to be about the work. Do the best job I can every time. And then there's nothing you can do. You have to step away from it. And then it has a life outside of your control or outside of your influence.

So with that, I was aware and I read some things online. And then I was like, oh, got to stop and can't look. you know what I mean because it all ends our end up pretty quick and a lot of people were disappointed again which I really

really get and I had no anger or you know you get disappointed if people get disappointed absolutely because regardless of how much you may be overpaid

or underpaid or you know you want people to be able to relate to the things that you do if you're in any way a storyteller whether it's paint on canvas

or the writing of a lyric or an actor or playwright whatever it may be But yeah, try to not spend too much time with it, you know. Well, you can't control. I mean, you can obsess over the control you have over your own character's journey

and the work you do, but then you have to let it go at the edge of that. Absolutely, absolutely. And it is, as you said earlier on, you start it up as, like it's very much a director's medium. Theaters and actors medium or playwrights medium and film really is a director's medium. There's nothing you can do about that. There's so many factors that have to come together. It's a miracle any time a film or a TV show gets made. I mean, there's so many contributing factors and really has to be a perfect

storm so much kind of creative harmony needs to come together for something to work, you know. You've worked with some terrific directors, some of the very best. And is that one of the key determinations of what roles you accept at this point? Yeah, yeah. Because you know it as a director's media. Absolutely. I was just, yeah, I mean, from, I mentioned Terry Malick and, like, I worked with Peter Weir, like, that was a dream, working with Peter, you know. And, and yeah, Yeah, there were a couple of jobs that were complete and utter no-brainers to align myself with because of who was at the helm.

I can't believe we moved on from True Detective and talking about mustaches without talking about raised for just one moment. That was the hardest death for me in that series. It was the test of the mustache. It was such an evocative emotional. I'm not kidding there. It was a very sad mustache.

Yeah, it really was. There was a lot of weight. There was a lot of weight to it. Did it affect, do those choices? I know this sounds trite, but I am actually curious. Like when you put on, it's like putting on a mask. I mean, David has a mustache with lobster.

No, it's the same with lobster. I mean, you know, there are things, you know, you could say that there are things to either hide behind or things to kind of provoke or draw out of you something different, something new, something unearthed or undiscovered. And yeah, physical stuff is really,

I found physical stuff really important, whether it's been putting muscle on for action films like through total recall or whether it's not even more specific work, but possibly more pronounced work like putting on the weight for the lobster. Every little thing, yeah, you try and, I mean, I could see Ray Velcoro

really clearly, very, very quick when I read the script. And I just, again, it's, you kind of go how much of it is vanity or the vanity of anti-vanity. And how much of it is really compelled by your understanding or your belief in what the character may be

and how he represents himself to the world because there's really very little by chance. I mean, I used to wear a pair really crappy boots I wore the same boots for 10 years. And in my head it was because I was like, I don't give a shit. And there's no laces on them and they're all beaten up and stuff.

But I gave a shit enough to wear the same boots for 10 years. It's a funny one, you know what I mean? It's kind of like if you have lots of money and you drive a piece of like a junk car, it's as much of a statement as a Lamborghini. It's just kind of cooler. You know what I mean? It's all effect.

It's all the armor we put on. Of course. We're always continuously putting out to the world how we wish to be perceived or how we're afraid of being perceived to thereby agitating the world around us to show we don't care, or whatever it may be. And with Ray, I just saw that practically he was, you know, he fashioned himself on an old,

old fashioned Western lawman. That was it. He came from a family of sheriffs and stuff from, you know, the dust bowls of Arizona and was very, very, was a very kind of emotionally even old fashioned man. The bolo tie then was came from you? The bolo tie, no, the bolo tie, to be honest with I got to give that to Nick Fizzolato. I got to keep that fully till. I was like, Bolo, mm, it might be just a bridge too far and then I put it on.

I was like, God damn, the bolo and the moustache and the boots. it kind of all works. It feels right. Yeah, I did. Honestly, I was shocked. I was like, oh, wow, there you go. You know,

you've been quite candid in interviews over the years about the effect that the early part of your career when you suddenly went from being a struggling actor like so many to a star in a way that only Hollywood can't afford to switch. As much overnight as is possible. Truly as much overnight as possible.

It was amazing to watch. I can't imagine what it was like. Amazing to watch from the inside as well, yeah. Well, you've been quite candid in other interviews about that, the personal effect and the professional effect. But in keeping with what we've been talking about here, I was curious, what was the creative effect of that experience?

Because acting was something that was like that battered pair of boots that defined you and was what you did and what you were interested in. But I would imagine that, you know, suddenly being on the set of Daredevil and all these other big movies that you suddenly found yourself on, this sense of scale must have been thrown off. Is it the same job when you're that age going through that? Did you, did you? Well, I don't think, I think, you know, I've. And I'm a fan of that performance, by the way. I didn't mean to do that Daredevil. No, no, no.

Not at all. Thank you, man. And it's, I'm, thank you so much. Um, no, I think I was in, in the earlier stages, perhaps I was more defined by the celebrity around me than the work I was doing, which is just an observation, not, not anything tainted with a misgiving I have over that. I think now more it's less about, I mean, I know it's less about celebrity and more about the work, whether that's, you know, and again, I tried to have no fondness or greater degree of attachment to either of those stages, one over the other, truly. And I, I feel less, I, I feel less, I, I feel less, I, I feel like I identify myself less with it now and now. And I think maybe being a dad of two boys helps with that.

Yeah. I think having a, you know, a richer life outside of it, because it was my life from the moment that the keys of the kingdom were kind of passed to me at a very, very, very, and when I say the keys of the kingdom, I mean like just anything you want in Los Angeles, anything, any door open, any party, any, you know, whatever your particular, precivity may have been on a particular night, could be yours within a half an hour of a phone call. And so all that stuff is not, it's not a poor me thing at all. but I look at certain young superstars now,

like I won't mention any names, but people who are really maddeningly successful, like 22 and 23 and have millions of their fingertips and people around them who just want to be partying with them and stuff, and I go, yes, we're not talking about a sick child, we're not talking about poverty, we're not talking about those things which are ultimately and fundamentally some of the greater sources

of heartbreak within the global societies we all share. But it is hard. It's hard to manage. Just because of a lack of maturity, it's hard to manage. When you live in a world where nobody will say to you no. Nobody will say to you know. At 22, like the majority of us, even the cops or the local bar owner, our own mates or family. But if you're 22 and 23 and all of a sudden you're on the road going city to city, hotel to hotel and you've got millions of dollars.

Again, if anyone's listening, they're going, oh, get over yourself, poor you. I'm not saying it's a poor you story. I'm just observing. It's the same psychological empathy also they were talking about. At the beginning you see people. It's just hard. It's not like poor you.

It's just you can lose the run of yourself very, very easily. And so for me at the start of my career, I mean, I was just obsessed with not changing. So I kind of pressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, seriously. So I kind of pressed the arrested development button myself.

And I literally stayed like 21 until I was 28 and couldn't be 21 anymore. So I went from 21 to 29 and it was horrific. I woke up one morning and I was like, whoa, yesterday I was 21, now I'm 29, what the fuck? And that was called rehab, you know? But it was, it was very intense and I, look, I'm very fortunate from day one. I'm just, I can sit. I'm so grateful to be here sitting, talking to you about this film today after 15 years of doing this job.

And I'm glad that period's over. Yeah. And I'm glad I, to be honestly, I lived through it, you know, and I'm really, and I'm glad it was over. But it was, it was intense. And I had a great time. I mean, I. That's good to hear it. Yeah, no, I really did.

I milked it for all it was worth until the milk became toxic and I was choking on my own experience. Milk doesn't last that long. No, it doesn't get sour, yeah. The other thing about that period is, you know, Hollywood is always trying to cram the next big thing into the same box. Week to week, yeah. And, you know, without burning any professional bridges that I don't want you to burn, I've always wondered if it was frustrating to see the parts that exist. Now, obviously, there are always small movies being made and there are always opportunities. Look at the lobster.

And you're willing to do that now. And we're given the chance to do it. But to me, what makes you interesting to me as a performer is you are always trying things and doing things. And you're alive and active, your choices. It's fun to watch. It's interesting to watch. Thank you. The standard blockbuster leading man actually does the least interesting things in the movie.

The movie revolves around that. Has to be the, you know, not to be too disparaging of those roles, but it has to be kind of the lowest common denominator. Right. And that requires a charisma and talent and ability. Yeah. But it also arrives you at possibly less specificity. Or maybe, you know, that was my shortcoming that I couldn't find the level of specificity,

I feel in a, and this is not to speak badly about the film or Michael, but in a Miami Vice, just speaking about my work or in SWAT or in various other things, and maybe it was fine for those particular pieces. But there was a discomfort in me various times at being unable myself to find a level of specificity and a level of character that I could, fully engaged with that was far enough from me.

Right. And I felt like I was journeying towards something new and something original. Whereas when you're given something that's as unique and as extreme in how it's crafted as the lobster or as, or as in Bruges, or even as this film I did Andine with Neil Jordan, which is a character that's not a million miles away from me, but it was so specific on the page and the contrivances that Syracuse was drawn around in the village and his alkyism and the fact that there was no AA in the village. so you used to have to go to the confessional

and talk to Stephen Reyes priest and there was all these beautiful little intricacies, these beautiful little specific dynamics in that film that allowed me to create a character around them to kind of use them as the canvas that the character became reflected off. So yeah, it is if you're the lead in a character like that, which is great.

It's why what makes a star of stars that the charisma can carry it off, you know. It's interesting though. I mean, again, this is not coal mining. This is not a sympathy thing. No, of course, no. But actors, I often wonder, And it's the jammie.

I mean, it's the jammiest job. I got to tell you. Like, truly, I'm not trying to be Mr. Humble Act. It really is. You know, I've missed funerals of people I loved, and I've missed the birth of my first son, and there are things that you miss, and there are times that you're in hotels, as I said.

And again, I have to, I'm sorry, but I do have to qualify it and try and beat people to the judgmental punch and say this is not a sorry. But there are things you miss, and there's been things through the years that have been a bit tough, but it's such a cool job.

And it's still fun. It's still fun now to me because I identify less with us. Truly. Like it's a job. I don't know that it's a vocation. I don't know that it's a calling. You know,

I leave that to the nurses and the priests. But it's something that I really love to do and it's something that I find can at times enrich my life. And I hope in a way, while I like to have a clean line between my personal and professional lives, I hope that it can make me a better job. dad and a better friend and all that stuff.

And I hope if I'm a better dad and a better friend, it can make me a better actor. And I hope those different aspects in my life complement each other. Maybe I'm being idealist, but I hope that that's the case. But I identify less with it. I identify less with the fame of it

and I identify less with, am I good or am I not good at it? And I just, I really like it. So there's this kind of contradictory thing that's taken place in the last five years where I almost care about it less and thereby permit myself to care about it more, but in a healthy way.

Well, I think, and I should let you go in a moment, but I think that that sounds like a very healthy recalibration for anyone in any profession where if you put, especially with a profession like acting where it changes month to month week to week, you don't know what's coming, the highs and lows. It's a very vicarious way to, vicarious existence. Yeah. If you can counterbalance things a little bit or rebalance the scales and your constant part of your life is the emotionally rich part in your home life and your family, then the rest of it can be an adventure, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Ideally, yeah, for sure. And then you probably approach it with a cleaner mindset and a healthier attitude and you can take the, the slings and arrows and the rises and falls. Yeah, and I've had some good kicks in the hours to the years. You know, the slings and arrows have not been a stranger to me. I had very many chapters in my life. And, you know, I mean, Alexander, I mean, that was just to... Listen, I was with some writers the other day and they said that the trailer,

the international trailer of Alexander is their favorite movie ever made. Not taking a piss, seriously. I have to see that. Really? The trailer, they love so much. And obviously, maybe it wasn't all on the screen in the final project, but they love it. I mean, that was an extraordinary. script, man. I seriously, it was

extraordinary and yeah, something got lost in the initial release anyway. I know Oliver has done four or five cuts. He's still doing it. It's his Star Wars Cantinas. Yeah, I know. He just put it to bed, I think, after his fourth or fifth cut. But that, you know, how that was received and

the kind of debacle, the tiring and feathering, but that became was, you know, for the sensitive mind, it was a tough one to get through. So anything now, I mean, look, at the end of the day, Honestly, as simplistic as it sounds, your kids are healthy, you've got some friends in your life, you've a roof over your head and everything else is gravy. I mean, does it help also that you are, you and your mindset in your career, you're a year or two in the future from the rest of us, right?

I mean, the lobster was it can last year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're promoting now, and I know I haven't said in 20 minutes, but boy, is this movie good. You're working on something else. You're working on next year, the year after that's... Yeah, reading stuff, yeah. So you move on from this and this becomes, yeah, this becomes a page in your history from a year ago. So it is always interesting to kind of revisit it.

But you do, you move on very, very quick from it all. You live whatever the period is that the story is unfolding. You live that very intensely. And then you learn to step from it just equally as intensely and re-engage with whatever your life is outside of it. Do you ever make a choice intentionally to basically balance the scales from the previous experience? Do you have comedy coming up?

As a horrible bosses fan, I'm curious if that's ever coming back in. No, I mean, I've, you know, I mean, I want to get pro. You kind of get tired of waiting around. for other people to tell you when you can work. Well, that's the thing I was saying. It's not a sad story, but there is a lack of control being an actor. Because you're dependent on the material. So I'm going to, you know, I, myself and my sister have a production company,

and there's a couple of things we're trying to get made. One particularly was a script that myself and Claudia and my sister and Graham Broadbent who produced Jim Bruges and Seven Psychopass and producing Martin McDonough film now that he's shooting with Sam and Francis McDormand and Woody again, Woody has it. So Graham, we're producing this thing called Homeless World Cup and Frank Cottrow Boyce, who's an extraordinary writer has spent, you know, a few years now. He did millions with Danny Boyle. Is that right?

I don't know. He might have touched it. I don't think he wrote it. I'll correct this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an extraordinary writer though, Liverpool and Ladden. He's finally written a brilliant script. So we produce that.

And I'm starting to write something myself as well, which is a very simple drama, which I could direct, you know, and do it for nothing, do it for like, you know, two, four million or something like that. Just keep it really low. And so I want to start just getting involved in that side of it. Because I realize more and more that it's, that a creative outlet is really important for me.

Yeah. whatever it is, like literally whatever, whether it's splashing paint on a canvas or writing a dodgy poem or just doing something. And I haven't shot since January. And I realized that, you know, it's not like, oh, I need to go back to work because I identify with if I'm not doing that, I'm useless.

But like genuinely, to have some kind of creative output is important to me. So I don't know what's coming up. I'm reading stuff to see what I'm going to do next and then working, you know, a little bit behind the camera as well. Well, excited to see it. And I guess worst case, you know, if you don't find the right project,

that man with a mustache watching people get off planes at the airport. That might be you. Yeah, he's still alive and kicking. The guy at LAX baggage claim. No, no, Dublin Airport. Before I ever had dreams at LA. Well, maybe I dreamed about it. No, I'm saying now if you have a slow period. Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Oh, yeah, I'll do that for a book, man. On that note. On that note.

No, to the lobster, it releases here in North America on May 13th by 24. Colin Farrell, extraordinary in it pretty much extraordinary in just about anything. I'm so excited to have the chance to talk to you. Likewise. It's been a pleasure. And best of luck with everything. Thank you, brother.