Colin Farrell, Hollywood hell-raiser turned devoted dad, has left his rabble-rousing past behind. Gone are the days when the paparazzi would have countless pictures of him with the latest Hollywood It-Girl. Nowadays, if he’s in the tabloids at all, it’s because he’s showing his adorable boys, Henry and James, around the set of his latest film.

In Hollywood, however, you can’t ever escape controversy completely. Farrell recently finished shooting Winter’s Tale, a fantasy romance from Oscar-winning producer Akiva Goldmsman, co-starring Russell Crowe, Will Smith and Jennifer Connolly. Due in 2014, the film has already caused a stir, after shooting continued in Manhattan in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy last year.
“We were in New York, which was intense,” says Farrell. “It was intense for a lot of people. I was up on 58th Street in a hotel, and it was weird. Whatever way the island was built and whatever way the weather system came in, the next day, from 38th Street down on, the island of Manhattan was blacked out. People were trapped. From 38th Street up, people were shopping with poodles and shit. It was weird, really weird. There was like a socio-economic line drawn. The ‘To-Dos’, who usually live Midtown and up, were fine. Downtown, towards Long Island, was brutal. But ultimately people jut get on with it. That city is indestructible. It has such an amazing spirit.”

It should be noted that Winter’s Tale is not a Shakespearian adaptation. Based on a 1983 novel by Mark Helprin, it follows the story of Farrell’s thief-with-a-heart-of-gold Peter Lake, and his time-travelling journey through gangster feuds and epic romance. There’s a flying horse, too.
“It has a ton of heart,” Farrell says of the movie, before admitting, “I don’t know what it’ll be as a film. It has some very fantastical elements. It’ll be interesting to see how they gel with the more practical aspects of the story. You know, me sitting atop a flying horse over Manhattan might be a hard pill to swallow!”
Indeed it might. Then again, we never thought we’d see him play Emma Thompson’s dad in a film either. As it turns out, he does it rather beautifully in Saving Mr. Banks, John Lee Hancock’s portrayal of Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers (Thompson) and the tumultuous journey it took to bring her beloved characters to the big screen.
Also starring Tom Hanks and Paul Giamatti, it’s an old-school tearjerker that explores Travers’ deep emotional wounds, inflicted by the death of her doting but troubled father and namesake, Travers Goff. Through flashbacks, we see Farrell play the magically imaginative but alcoholic figure, whose passionate spirit is marked by a deep sense of melancholy.
“He’s cursed really,” agrees Farrell. “Cursed by an overwhelming presence of melancholy in his life and in his heart and the self-pity that often accompanies alcoholism. He was kind of a broken man, couldn’t make sense of life. And our part of the story was set in the early years of the 20th century, so there weren’t support groups and AA and people talking on radio and in print about mental and emotional health and stuff. He was just someone who was cursed with alcoholism, even though he loved his family. He was a beautiful father in many ways. Lovely to be around. At the same time, he couldn’t keep a job, couldn’t turn up. It’s kind of sad.”
The role allows Farrell to play to his strengths; in particular, the roguish charm that makes him irresistibly charismatic on and off screen.
“His behaviours and his malady didn’t go outward in the most destructive of ways,” explains Farrell. “He was not a violent man, not acerbic, not cruel in his intentions at all. Just heartbroken. And that was hard to be around. Because he had such a huge effect on P.L. Travers. That’s one of the most beautiful things about the script, that it really says that everything you see and hear as a child
gets processed in a way that informs who you become as an adult. We all know that, and it’s very obvious. To represent that on film, in a way that’s smart and sensitive, was impressive.”

The longer Farrell talks about his character, the harder it becomes not to draw parallels with the actor’s own life. Though sober over eight years, his public battles with drug and alcohol addiction became the defining feature of his rapid rise to fame.
As with Travers, the young star was almost universally adored by those who met him. However, his experiments with cocaine, ecstasy, speed and marijuana, as well as copious amounts of alcohol, began to impact on his work. Talking to Hot Press in 2010, Farrell said that he knew he had to go to rehab after his alcoholism all but erased his memory of working on Michael Mann’s Miami Vice.
“I don’t remember making Miami Vice,” he confessed. “I’ve seen bits of it since and I just stare blankly. I don’t remember any of it. At least that’s my excuse for all the people who thought it was shite.”
When it came to Travers Goff, it’s possible that personal experience enabled Farrell to understand his character’s desire to bring fun and adventure into his children’s lives.
“He’s someone who has never been able to apply himself to the world of grown-up responsibility,” he says now, “and the systems that most modern societies exist in: the workplace, providing for a family, the responsibilities of sometimes having to do a job that one doesn’t get a sense of satisfaction or contentment from.
“And he’s somebody who was known for being in love with Celtic mythology and Irish limericks and who had a very lyrical aspect. He was a great storyteller, and something of a bon vivant – but couldn’t actually apply himself to the day-to-day banalities of existing. What it can mean to provide for a family and have an sense of solidity to your life.”
Farrell pauses, then corrects himself: “His life.”
For all the parallels and overlapping psychological complexities between the 37-year-old’s past and his character, there’s a confident, objective distance that’s comforting to see. Though Farrell has always been forthright about his personal demons, it’s obvious that he has moved on. A reformed character, Colin is so clearly happier and healthier in sobriety that playing an alcoholic doesn’t bring back old demons.
“I’ve been asked, because of my own journey through the city streets of drugs and alcohol or whatever, whether it’s easier to empathise with this character. It’s kind of not, really. I mean, you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, so maybe it’s a little easier to empathise. If you walk into a room and there are 40 alcoholics, there are 40 different stories. So you just take what’s on the page.”
This objectivity and distance marks a huge difference from Farrell’s experience filming In Bruges, just two years after rehab.
“There was a scene in the hotel where we were doing lines of coke, and that was difficult. I had a massive reaction to that, got really upset. Because I still really understood the dynamic of five people in a hotel room, with nobody listening to what anyone’s saying, all looking for company, trying to alleviate their existential aloneness.
“And in In Bruges, that character had blood on his hands,” he adds. “He’d killed a child. So as much as that film was funny – and it is hilarious! – playing that dude was so dark. He was so fucked up.”

While In Bruges allowed Farrell explore the tragic elements of a man struggling with issues of personal morality and self-destruction, his role in Saving Mr. Banks holds more meaning from him.
 “I was representing so many Dads – and maybe, per capita, more Irish Dads – that just couldn’t turn up. They love their kids, and want nothing more in life for their kids to be happy and be fulfilled, and just couldn’t fucking do it. And, for a myriad of reasons, they ran to the drink. Escaped to the drink every time. And thereby created some pain down the road for the kids.”
And that is where the parallels between the actor and Travers Goff abruptly end. Farrell’s transformation from wild child to calm, sober and insightful man can be attributed to his children, and his determination to be a good father. He reveals that, while attending AA, it was his eldest son James who became his constant source of inspiration.
“I wasn’t willing to make the leap into all the beliefs that I was told will make me a better person or a sober person,” says Farrell of AA’s famous Twelve Steps. “They did demand that you had a Higher Power, something greater than yourself, something outside yourself that you could align yourself philosophically and emotionally with. And they were saying, ‘God is that obvious thing’. At that stage I was just like, ‘Ugh, whatever!’ So I made it James. And he very much is a Higher Power.
“I look at him and get a sense daily of the purity of that boy’s heart and his journey and the level of extreme kindness that emanates from him at every turn. So, to this day, he could be construed as a Higher Power.”
But while James and his youngest son Henry may be a source of personal inspiration, Farrell admits he won’t be taking on any more kids’ films just to please them, as these two budding critics seem to have quite definite tastes.
“I did this cartoon, Epic, and my son didn’t go for it at all!” he laughs uproariously. “Seriously, I think we watched it one and a half times, didn’t make it through the second viewing. And he’s on viewing 25 of Wreck It Ralph, and about 32 of Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs. He was about halfway through the second viewing of Epic and was like, ‘I don’t want to watch this, I want to watch something else!’”
Having children not only seems to have allowed Farrell to mature, but also to find meaning and validation beyond the admiration of an audience. At the outset of his career, he appeared driven not by the desire to be a great actor but by the lifestyle a successful career would bring. Indeed, as a teenager he even auditioned for Boyzone though he admits he can’t sing a note. He was really chasing fame.
“It was just on the tear!” exclaims Farrell, and his speech immediately quickens. “So much happened so fast. It was mental! I mean, how does one prepare for life lived in the superficial extremity of what I went through? And throw in the speed at which I found myself in Los Angeles and the chaos of success and the money – it was mental.”
And just like that, he slows.
“And something’s happened in the last while. It seems like it should be a contradictory idea, but it’s not. I enjoy the work more than ever and I’m less attached to it. I identify with it less. I want the work to find an audience and I care less about…”
You want the audience to like the work, rather than needing them to like you?
“Yeah,” he says, with a pensive laugh of self-recognition. “Very well said!”

HE’S SOME CHARACTER (ACTOR)
I’m more proud to be a supporting character in this film than I have been to be the lead in a lot of the ones I’ve done. It’s so good to be in something I think is really good,” says Colin Farrell about Saving Mr.Banks.
Though he undoubtedly has the looks and talent to be a traditional leading man, Colin Farrell’s career highlights have mainly been when he’s given more interesting, nuanced roles as a supporting character. Despite getting leading roles in big-budget films like The Recruit (2003), Alexander (2004), A New World (2004), Miami Vice (2006) and Total Recall (2012), none of these impressed critics, and the largely generic roles didn’t allow the actor’s skill to shine. Looking over some of his career highlights, it seems the Irishman’s talents are far better served by independent films and supporting turns than his blockbuster leading man status would have you believe.
Intermission (2003): Playing thuggish petty criminal Lehiff in the Irish ensemble black comedy, Farrell used both his flirtatious charm and intensity to bring us one of the most brilliantly unexpected, outrageous and hilarious opening scenes we’ve seen in a while. His laughably machismo-laden battles with Garda Jerry Lynch (Colm Meaney) were a highlight of the film.
Phone Booth (2003): Not by any means your typical, generic leading man role, the production of Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth was repeatedly delayed. Studios didn’t think the central conceit, that involved Colin Farrell being held hostage in a phone booth by an unseen sniper, would work, as he had to be on-screen nearly every moment of the film. But Farrell’s transformation from a strutting arrogant city slicker into a dishevelled, terrified mess contemplating his mortality was stunning, and elevated the smart thriller into an acting showcase.
In Bruges (2008): Sharing the spotlight with Brendan Gleeson, Farrell’s performance in Martin McDonagh’s incredibly dark, brilliantly written comedy showed just how fantastic the actor can be when given material that displays his comedic skills, emotional complexity and philosophical Celtic spirit. Reunited with McDonagh in 2012 for Seven Psychopaths, his Marty was a more traditional, straight leading man role, and was lost amidst a sea of more interesting and eccentric supporting characters.
The Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus (2009): Following the mid-shoot death of Heath Ledger, director Terry Gilliam hired Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell to play transformed versions of his character. While it didn’t require a lot of screen time, Farrell’s Parnassus appearance represents some of the most personal work of his career – duly noted by Roger Ebert, who declared, “Depp looks the most like Ledger, but it’s a melancholy fact that Farrell steals the role.”
Crazy Heart (2009): Playing the now hugely successful former protégé to Jeff Bridges’ over the hill, alcoholic country singer, Farrell brought an honesty, relaxed charisma and deep nuance to his role, making his on-screen relationship with Bridges the most interesting of the film. While the part of a desired singer may have been played with a certain brash swagger by a lesser actor, Farrell’s ability to subtly sink into more alternative roles displays a vanity-free maturity.

Saving Mr. Banks is in cinemas now