Coming Up for Air ; Colin Farrell's Prodigious Talent Was Almost Sunk by His Attachment to Alcohol. Five Years After His Last Drink (and Five Years After His Last Major Interview) He Talks About His Reckless Youth, Drying Out, Falling for a Mermaid... And the Uncanny Similarities Between His Life and His New Film [Eire Region]

Mail on Sunday › February 28, 2010

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Summary

There's nothing more Hollywood than the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Beside me, a priceless David Hockney underwater mural is visible through the uninterrupted surface of the pool, and a huge outdoor fireplace blazes away. Producers and executives in black leather and Ray-Bans are hunched over iPhones, while blondes in bikini tops dangle pedicured feet in the water. Everyone is trying desperately hard to look very cool indeed.

Everyone, that is, except Colin Farrell. He's decidedly low-key - - lightly built, with a black fedora pulled down over his eyes and short, black gelled hair -- despite having a magnetism that makes everyone stare. He's just done a major photo shoot for us, and his attitude towards being interviewed is so unaffected that at one point he makes a random call back to Ireland to make sure he's got his story straight. 'Hey, Mum,' he says. 'I have a quick pop quiz for you. When I got kicked out of school, we didn't tell Dad, did we? Did I not leave and go round the corner every morning to my friend's house? Okay, thanks. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a fabrication of mine. Are you well? I'll speak to you later.'

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Coming Up for Air ; Colin Farrell's Prodigious Talent Was Almost Sunk by His Attachment to Alcohol. Five Years After His Last Drink (and Five Years After His Last Major Interview) He Talks About His Reckless Youth, Drying Out, Falling for a Mermaid... And the Uncanny Similarities Between His Life and His New Film [Eire Region]

It's hard, listening to this, to remember that not so long ago Farrell was Hollywood's rather predictably badly behaved boy. Starring in such blockbusters as Minority Report and Alexander, off- screen he came close to a meltdown. A serial seducer, he was linked to a string of famous women, from Demi Moore to Britney Spears to English actress Amelia Warner (with whom he had an impulsive four- month marriage in 2001) -- and also addicted to alcohol. But five years ago, after filming Miami Vice, he decided to change his life. Among other things, he went to rehab and hasn't had a drink since. Now he's reflective and intelligent...

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