Colin Farrell breaks into a big grin as he dishes about his latest role. “It was the best thing I’ve been offered this year,” says the thick-browed Irish actor.
The plum part? A guest spot on “Sesame Street.”
“I did a scene with Elmo and a couple of the other characters,” he says. “The word of the day was ‘investigation.’ We did a scene with a couple of talking carrots and s – – t. It was genius!”
Wow. This is a far cry from the Colin Farrell of a decade ago, who might well have showed up to this interview with both a hangover and a beer. This is reformed, sober, father-of-two Colin Farrell: friend to Muppets, Special Olympics spokesman and indie-film star, most recently in a quaint fairy tale of a movie written and directed by his countryman Neil Jordan (“The Crying Game”).
In Jordan’s “Ondine,” out Friday, Farrell plays Syracuse, an Irish recovering-alcoholic fisherman who scoops up a mysterious young woman in his net.
“I kind of had [Farrell] in mind when I was writing it,” says Jordan. “But not specifically, really. I didn’t say, ‘I’m writing this for you as a person.’”
Still, the similarities are touching, and it’s nearly impossible not to think about them as you watch. Syracuse — or Circus, as he’s known in his small town, because he’s a bit of a mess — lives with a heavy load of regret about his days as a drunk and, consequently, a terrible father. Like Farrell, he’s trying to make up for lost time with his child and forge a new romantic relationship.
That woman is the same person, onscreen and off: 27-year-old Polish actress Alicja Bachleda, who plays the title character. The two have been an item since they met while filming in the summer of 2008. She’s the mother of Farrell’s 7-month-old, Henry.
In “Ondine,” nothing blows up, no armies are massed, no high-speed chases ensue — in stark contrast to Farrell’s work in big-budget films like “Daredevil,” “SWAT,” “Alexander” and “Miami Vice.”
“It hasn’t been a conscious decision to move away from the larger event films,” Farrell insists. “It’s just the way it happened.”
But the high-flying Hollywood phase of Farrell’s career did coincide with a lot of hedonistic hijinks in his personal life. After a breakout role as a reluctant soldier in 2000’s “Tigerland,” Farrell was quickly sucked into the celebrity lifestyle, which initially worked well for a hard-drinking, handsome, single star.
“I enjoyed using it to the best of my advantage,” he put it when talking to one entertainment reporter in the mid-2000s. Farrell charmed, slurred and swaggered his way down many a red carpet, leaving a trail of cigarette burns in his wake. He worked his way through a sizable swath of LA ladies — reportedly among them Angelina Jolie and Britney Spears — and even got his own sex tape.
His romp with Playboy model Nicole Narain was splashed all over the Internet, featuring an impressive performance by Farrell, who came up with lines like “Holy f – – k, man. Breakfast, lunch, and f – – king dinner, right here. I’m not even f – – king joking.”
“I don’t know what that was about,” he admitted sheepishly to UK talk-show host Jonathan Ross. “I think I was high.”
Ross pointed one one upside: “I think maybe it won you some fans,” he said. “I know people who saw it and said, boy, he’s a well-developed young fella. Puberty was kind to this boy.”
“I might have got some of my better reviews,” Farrell agreed. “Which would be depressing.”
He was kind of right, though: Most of the big movies were panned, though he still got some praise. “Farrell is a fine actor, but on a human scale,” Rogert Ebert said of his performance in Oliver Stone’s overblown “Alexander.” “He’s not cut out for philosopher-king.”
Eventually, even Farrell himself seems to have tired of the wild-man cliché, and checked himself into rehab. In the past few years, he’s been keeping a low profile both personally and professionally, showing up in smaller movies and turning in better work.
“In Bruges,” the 2008 Martin McDonagh dark comedy in which he co-starred with Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes, won rave reviews and seemed like a turning point for Farrell. In late 2009, he had two small but talked-about roles: in Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” he was one of three actors to take over for the late Heath Ledger. And in the Oscar-winning “Crazy Heart,” he turned in a surprisingly convincing performance as country star Tommy Sweet — a role for which he not only mastered a Texan accent but belted out a twangy anthem in front of a packed stadium. “All those years singing with the hairbrush in front of the mirror paid off, obviously,” he joked to a reporter at the time.
These days, Farrell’s based in LA, albeit with frequent sanity-saving excursions elsewhere.
“One of the best things about living there is it’s an amazing launching point for a load of good drives,” he says. “I’m going to drive to Vegas in a couple weeks. Big Sur, Death Valley, the desert . . . oh man, it’s magic.”
So is the new, crunchy Farrell becoming a desert hiker, as well? “No!” he says. “Too much work. I just stop and have a smoke.”