We Got This Covered: You character in this movie is a father who has lost his family. What kind of a father are you in real life?
Colin Farrell: Which kind of father am I? The good one (laughs). I don’t know. I hope I’m a good one. I try. I’m very involved. When I’m 3000 miles on a film set, I Skype. But it’s harder to leave home now. I’m very involved in my boys lives, and I think that’s the best thing you can do is just attend and be there. You may not know what the fuck to do but at least you’re there going “I don’t know what to do but at least we’ll figure it out together.”
We Got This Covered: Do you believe a broken heart can be mended?
Colin Farrell: I don’t know. I would believe so. But I don’t know how, and I can’t imagine the work that would take and the tears that would have to be spilled and the forgiveness that would have to be placed upon oneself or another depending on what the circumstances were. But I would hope so.
We Got This Covered: Like your character in this movie you are an immigrant. What did you win by living the American dream and what did you lose?
Colin Farrell: I have no idea. Coming to America, I came to this country in a much more comfortable fashion that a lot of my forefathers. A lot of my people came here to survive so that they wouldn’t die, and I came here to follow a dream so I’ve been very lucky in regards to that and so far it’s worked out.
We Got This Covered: We see that your hair is styled for Winter’s Tale. Can you tell us more about your character in that?
Colin Farrell: I play Peter Lake who is an orphan and the son of immigrant parents that were turned away at Ellis Island. Upon being turned away, they put him in a little model ship and placement water and sent them off with their prayers towards Manhattan, hoping he survives. He does survive and gets taken in by a group of people and then he gets taken in by a gang, then he leaves the gang and then he meets a girl. It’s set in 1906 and 2014, and the tale kind of spans that century and kind of defies the conventions of time and space continuum. It’s a very unusual and a very magical script. Who knows what’ll be as a film.
We Got This Covered: That movie is based on the highly regarded book by Mark Helprin. Would you say it differs from the book or remains faithful to it?
Colin Farrell: I haven’t read the book. I think I will read it someday. I’ve done films before that were based on books and I read the books and found myself constantly going “why can’t we have that in it? Why can’t there be a bit of that in it?” Initially the thing I fell in love with that attracted me enough to allow myself to do a film for four or five months was the script. When doing a film, I’m just going to leave it at the script and trust that the person who adapted it from the book has done a good job.
We Got This Covered: Can you tell us what it was like working with Noomi Rapace?
Colin Farrell: Noomi’s magnificent. I just loved working with her every day, and I just felt like I had a really good dance partner and I hope I was the same for her. We moved in time with each other it felt on the set, and we had very similar ideas of what the film could be and are characters’ journeys alone and towards each other. We had hotel rooms that were beside each other on the same floor and we shared a balcony. She texts me and I text her saying “do you want to meet on the balcony and talk about tomorrow’s work?” So she opened her double doors and I opened mine, and we step out and talk about the day’s work. It was kind of a diluted reflection of what was going on in the film without the hostility and the sinister aspect.
She’s really bright, she’s got a lot of life experience, and she’s really open and got a lot of integrity. It means a lot to her, the character she plays, and she takes complete possession and responsibility for what she does. She’s just wonderful. I just loved working with her.
That concludes our interview but we’d like to thank Colin for taking the time to talk with us. Be sure to check out Dead Man Down, in theatres this Friday.
