Los Angeles: Hollywood actor Colin Farrell’s trajectory changed for the good after he starred in In Bruges. However, the actor almost self-sabotaged his chances at the role.
A clip from ‘The Graham Norton Show’ has resurfaced on the internet, showing the actor walking down memory lane as he spoke about how he turned down the role and tried talking director Martin McDonagh out of casting him.
During the show, Graham Norton asked him, “Directors can make stars, but also they can kind of change the trajectory of established stars. I’m thinking like Martin McDonagh when he came to you with In Bruges. Is this a way that you thought you weren’t right for the film?”
The actor said, “No, I thought I was right for it, but I thought it was terrible casting. I had just got out of rehab and so I had burned a good few bridges, and the phone wasn’t ringing the way it did in the first few years of my career and it was ringing. I had a little interesting journey, and took a side trip to rehab and then I came out of rehab. Martin wanted to meet me and I knew Martin from back in the day from hanging out with him in London”.
He further mentioned, “He was doing his theater here, and we had some good nights on the tiles, all in the distant past. But we met and he said, ‘You read the script’, and I had read it he had sent it. He said, ‘What do you think?’. I said, I just think it’s one of the most brilliant things I’ve ever read. It’s so beautiful. It’s so moving, it’s such a love story between these two characters and it’s just an anarchy as well in moments and it’s hilarious”.
“He said, ‘Great, so you’ll do it’, and I said, ‘No, I think you can do better’, and he went, ‘What are you talking about?’. I said, ‘To be honest with you, I come with a lot of baggage, and I might not be known for the right stuff right now. So I think you should get somebody that the audience doesn’t come in with any kind of prejudice at the beginning, the writing is that good’. He went, ‘Okay, great but you’re not the casting director’”, the actor said as he burst out laughing.
