Colin Farrell recalled “one of the worst days I’ve ever had on a film set” during a visit to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday.
The Irish actor, who’s currently starring in the Netflix film Ballad of a Small Player, described a disastrous scene while shooting his big breakthrough Hollywood role in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi classic Minority Report. In the film, Farrell played a Justice Department agent investigating Tom Cruise’s character for a crime.
“I grew up watching them lads, I grew up watching Tom Cruise and Top Gun and Risky Business, and Steven Spielberg and [composer] John Williams kind of raised me in their films,” he began. “But it was my birthday on May 31. We were shooting. I begged production of a $120 million film if they would not have me working on my birthday. Who did I think I was?”
“So my pickup [to go to set] was at 6 a.m. and I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before,” he continues. “I remember getting into bed, and as soon as I turned off the light, the phone rang, and it was the driver outside saying, ‘It’s 10 past 6’ and I went, ‘Oh shit.’”
“I got to the trailer, and Dave Venghaus — the [second] AD, God bless him — went, ‘You can’t go to the set like this.’ I went: Just get me, get me six Pacifico Cervezas and a pack of 20 Marlboro Reds.”
At this point in the story, Farrell noted that this tale takes place a couple years before the actor went to rehab and got sober. “All the holy people who we look to for the answers on how to live a life would say, ‘The present is all that counts,’” he joked.
“I had a couple of beers and I went to the set,” he continued. “But it was terrible. I will never forget the line that I had, but I couldn’t get it out. It was: ‘I’m sure you’ve all grasped the fundamental paradox of pre-crime methodology.’ That was the line that started the scene. I remember one of them coming up and saying, ‘Do you want to go and take a breath of fresh air?’ And I remember thinking: ‘If I go out and take a breath of fresh air, then I’ll be under more pressure when I come back in.’”
Then Farrell revealed: “It took 46 takes. “Tom wasn’t very happy with me. Tom was not happy with me.”
Cruise, of course, famously demands perfection from himself, and also holds those around him to a high standard. His Top Gun: Maverick co-star Jennifer Connelly told Extra TV, “I’ve never been more paranoid about knowing my lines,” adding that Cruise runs a “tight ship” because “he’s so prepared. All the time.”
Needless to say, Farrell’s swaggering performance in Minority Report launched his career, and was soon followed by major roles in Phone Booth, Daredevil and Alexander.
