Colin Farrell is older, wiser - but not a big fan of himself

Nov 26 2010 By Susan Griffin

There was a time when the name Colin Farrell was synonymous with wild antics and hard partying. So much so, he was once voted Hollywood’s top party animal by In Touch magazine.

But then the Dublin-born actor had a lot to celebrate. In a few short years, he’d gone from unsuccessfully auditioning for Boyzone and touring Ireland as part of a line-dancing troupe to sharing screen time with acting legends Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and Al Pacino.

No wonder he was determined to enjoy himself – he was young, rich, famous and in demand.

But that was then. Fast forward seven years or so and, bar the publicity trail when promoting his latest film, you rarely catch sight or sound of Farrell.

“For a while I was out more and I was easy to find – very easy to find,” says the 34-year-old.

“Obviously now I’m in the gaff and boring, I’m not interesting to press any more. You need X-ray lenses to get at me.”

So was it a conscious decision to give up crawling the night spots?

“Not really, it was a by-product of other decisions I made,” he replies, pushing both hands through his dark hair.

You can only infer he means the birth of his two sons – the first, James, now seven, whom he had with model Kim Bordenave, and Henry, who was born in 2009. He met Henry’s mother, the actress Alicja Bachleda, on the set of Ondine but the pair are rumoured to have separated last month.

The notion of celebrity and the pitfalls of paparazzi are examined in a sub-plot in Farrell’s latest movie, a gritty gangster thriller called London Boulevard.

Farrell’s character, an ex-con called Mitchell, becomes entangled in the life of a reclusive movie star, played by Keira Knightley.

“I can empathise [with Keira’s character], sure,” says Farrell.

For Farrell, it was the writing that attracted him to his latest role. “Sometimes you read a script and before you’ve made any conscious decisions your lips are moving and you’re saying the words and you know you’re at least into it and gripped by it and that was the case with this one,” he says, sinking low in his chair.