Colin Farrell has said that he once showed up so drunk to a film set he needed almost 50 takes to convincingly get through a line of dialogue, angering co-star Tom Cruise.
Speaking to Stephen Colbert on his late-night talk show, Farrell recalled “one of the worst days” he’d ever experienced on set, both hungover and freshly intoxicated on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi drama Minority Report.
In the film, based on Philip K Dick’s 1956 novella of the same name, Farrell plays a Department of Justice agent who audits a programme using psychic technology to predict murders, while Cruise is a “Precrime” chief accused of a murder he hasn’t yet committed.
Farrell had requested not to work on his birthday, 31 May, but instead had been issued with a 6am pickup time. “I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before,” Farrell told Colbert. “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 six,’ and I went, ‘Oh shit.’”
Even after an assistant director told Farrell that he couldn’t work in his condition, the actor remained optimistic, saying: “Just get me six Pacifico Cervezas and a pack of 20 Marlboro Reds.”
Farrell in Ballad of a Small Player. Photograph: AP
Fortified by more beer, Farrell went on set. “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 precrime methodology.’ That was the line that started the scene.
“I remember one of the [crew] 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.’”
After 46 takes, Farrell finally managed it. “Tom wasn’t very happy with me,” he said.
Three years after the incident, Farrell checked himself into a rehab centre to try to cure an addiction to drugs and alcohol, doing the same again in 2018 as a “preemptive measure”.
In his latest film, Ballad of a Small Player, Farrell plays a high-stakes gambler hiding out in the casinos of Macau.
Farrell’s character in Minority Report is meant to be entirely sober, but many actors have shot scenes in which they’re meant to be drunk while actually drunk, in an attempt at authenticity.
These include Fred Astaire, who shot his “drunken dance” scene in Holiday Inn seven bourbons down; Robert Shaw, who was so intoxicated before filming his key monologue in Jaws that he had to be carried to the set; and Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, in which he plays a self-destructing alcoholic.
Robert Shaw went method during Jaws. Photograph: THA/Alamy
Billy Bob Thornton, too, adopted method acting techniques while shooting Bad Santa, about a permanently intoxicated Father Christmas, saying: “I drank about three glasses of red wine for breakfast … Then I switched over to vodka and cranberry juice, and then I had a few Bud Lights. By the time I got to that scene there, I barely knew I was in a movie.”
However, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher forged a template for Farrell on the set of the Empire Strikes Back, arriving on set fresh from partying with Eric Idle and the Rolling Stones. “I remember that we never went to sleep,” said Fisher, “so we weren’t hungover – we were still drunk when we arrived in Cloud City the next day. We don’t really smile a lot in the movie, but there we’re smiling.”
Cruise, meanwhile, is known for his strict work ethic and sober professionalism. In 2020, leaked audio of the actor berating crew members on the seventh Mission: Impossible movie for potentially breaking social distancing guidelines went viral.
Happier days … Cruise at the Cannes premiere of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Photograph: Michael Buckner/Variety/Getty Images
Admonishing two technicians for standing too close to each other in front of a monitor in Leavesden, Cruise said: “We are the gold standard. They’re back there in Hollywood making movies right now because of us. Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies.
“We are creating thousands of jobs, you motherfuckers. I don’t ever want to see it again. Ever!”
The actor later defended his outburst, saying that he wanted to ensure that production on the film did not shut down. “I said what I said,” he told Empire. “There was a lot at stake at that point.”
In the UK, Taking Action on Addiction provides links to different support services. In the US, call or text SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 988. In Australia, the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline is at 1800 250 015; families and friends can seek help at Family Drug Support Australia at 1300 368 186
