When Irish Eyes Are Smiling

After a meteoric rise then crash, followed by a recovery to mediocracy, Colin Farrell is on fire again – intriguing in The Lobster, crowdpleasing in Fantastic Beasts and with an upcoming slate of edgy-cool projects that demand attention. With Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled up next, the Dubliner reflects on the importance of happiness on and off screen.

- Jane crowther

Colin Farrell is calling from his car while cruising round LA and wants to give Total Film a heads up that our chat is likely to be interrupted. “So unprofessional,” he apologises with a laugh. In fact, he’s the very definition of courteous professionalism; once a self-confessed bad boy who shot to stardom off the back of an electric debut in 2000’s Tigerland, and subsequently rolled out of nightclubs, dated Britney Spears and was featured in a sex tape with a Playboy model at the height of his voracious ascent, Farrell embraced sobriety and yoga in 2005 (TF once sat next to him on a beach while he did his sun salutations before a junket) and is currently on nothing more rock ’n’ roll than the school run to pick up his son. The unprofessionalism he alludes to amounts to toggling expertly between eloquent discussion of his torrid new film, The Beguiled, and ensuring seat belts are buckled and sweets are eaten in moderation (“You can take one thing, one thing,” he parents mid-muse on gender politics).