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New York Daily News- Colin Cleans up ( Courtesy of Evil-Eric-Cartmen)
Quote:
Colin cleans up
Fatherhood has changed the 'Alexander' star, though pubs should still stay open
By MICHELLE CARUSO
HOLLYWOOD - In Oliver Stone's "Alexander," Colin Farrell plays the great Macedonian king and military leader who conquered the Persian Empire in the fourth century B.C.
Farrell, 28, portrays Alexander as a tortured son driven to extremes by the dueling parents whose recognition, approval and love he yearned for.
When it comes to being a parent himself, Farrell can't get enough of his own son, 14-month-old James, whose mother, model Kim Bordenave, 34, is an ex-girlfriend of the star.
On the day he talked to the Daily News, the Irish actor, famous for his hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing ways, showed he's every bit the doting dad.
"God, if I had my way, I'd have him by my side 24-7," Farrell said of "the little fellow" as the angel-faced toddler with the thick head of strawberry blond hair slept soundly on the king-size bed in Farrell's hotel penthouse suite under the watchful eye of a nanny.
The mere mention of his son makes Farrell beam with pride (and, no, he doesn't smoke around him).
"He's sitting up and crawling. Of course, I miss him madly when I'm working," he says, "but we don't live in an ideal world. As it is, he's healthy, he's happy. His mother is an incredible mother, and I'm working to support him and put things in place for his future. And I'm very much in his life.
"I had James completely intentionally," he adds. "We didn't plan it or talk about it, but when he was conceived I knew [Kim] was gonna be pregnant and there was never a question of having him or not having him."
SAUCY BANTER
But work is a driving force for Farrell, who was raised with two older sisters and an older brother in Castleknock, Ireland, by mom Rita and dad Eamon, who played professional soccer for Shamrock Rovers.
Since his breakout role in Joel Schumacher's "Tigerland" (2000), Farrell has starred in nine movies (and had a bit part in Schumacher's "Veronica Guerin"), including "Minority Report," "Phone Booth," "The Recruit," "S.W.A.T." and "Daredevil."
But "Alexander," a sweeping epic about the greatest warrior of the ancient world, is the one that will put him on the map.
And Farrell knows it. So he's prepared to rise to the occasion. For the first time in his career, he admits his handlers and studio suits have asked him to mind his manners.
"They just want me to talk about the work and not get into any of that other stuff," he says, alluding to past interviews in which he cussed freely, chugged beer and engaged in saucy banter about women, bikini waxes and partying.
As he says, "I've talked about everything in my personal life, I've covered all my bases, I've exposed everything I've ever done, so there will never be a person who tells a story about me where they go, 'Shocker, I can't believe he did that.' I've shot my mouth off about various bits and pieces of my past or what I think or believe."
Farrell says his main challenge as Alexander was understanding his ambition, which was so strong he pushed his armies 22,000 miles in eight years, conquering lands from Greece to India before he died of illness at the age of 32.
Alexander is depicted as a victim of the vicious power struggle between his scheming mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) and his cold, egomaniacal father, the warrior King Philip II (Val Kilmer).
"His mother and father used him against each other, as a pawn, in that game they played with each other for years. So he was caught between the two of them," Farrell says. Their neglect of him explains why Alexander "kept pushing, why he kept striving, why he wanted to reach this destiny."
Like most historical epics, "Alexander," which opens Wednesday, required its actors to master tough feats, like bareback-horse-riding, hand-to-hand combat and wrestling in loincloths. Given Alexander's immersion in an intensely physical all-male military environment and his lack of paternal love, it's hardly a surprise that he liked to "lie with men" (but not to the exclusion of women), a practice common among the educated classes in ancient times.
Farrell took the gay element in stride.
"I really gave it no attention," he says. "It's a bit harder to play a ruler of the world than to play a homosexual. In those times, there was no hetero-, bi- or homo- . Those weren't terms that existed. That's just a fact of history."
Alexander also shares one overly passionate kiss with his mother, but Farrell doesn't think their relationship was incestuous.
"Like a lot of mother-son relationships, it was just highly important in his shaping as a man and based on a very deep, very profound love. That kiss was about aggression, about empowerment. It wasn't sexual," he says.
One wonders if Farrell knows himself as well as he seems to "get" Alexander.
"I don't know for sure," he says. "I haven't got that much self-awareness. I question myself all the time. I would at times ask, 'How the f- did I get here? Why am I here? And why was I given the opportunity to do what I am doing when so many others are at least as capable?'
"And at times I would ask myself, 'Is there such a thing as destiny? Are any of our paths preordained? How much power do you have to construct the road you travel down or choose what direction it goes in?'"
Enough, perhaps, for Farrell to be making a concerted effort to be taken seriously - to clean up his act, his language (he curses comparatively rarely during the interview) and his image.
"I'm not crawling out of clubs. You've never seen a picture of me lying on a curb. I'm not a fighter," he says.
But Farrell doesn't apologize for liking beer and cigarettes. He's not about to embrace the Pellegrino-chugging, tobacco-free L.A. lifestyle.
"No, I never try to adjust to any form of social thought or any form of living my life in a way that a particular group of people say I should," he says. "I've never tried to rock the boat. I just do what I do. I live my life the way I want to live it and I try to make sure that I don't hurt anyone."
Farrell, who lives in Dublin when he's not filming, says drinking is part of life in Ireland. Indeed, he thinks Americans could stand to learn a bit about the fine art of hoisting a glass.
"The Irish do drink a lot," he says. "But it's kind of a better form of drinking. We go to the pub every night and we sit with our friends. Have a laugh and have five or six or seven pints and go home and go to work the next day. It's much more social.
"I go to a bar here [Los Angeles] and they're like, 'Come on, man, let's do shots!' They cannot get the drink into themselves fast enough!"
Farrell's carousing hasn't affected his work, says Variety film critic Todd McCarthy. "He's not hurting himself. It's colorful, and in Hollywood, it's tolerated if you can deliver."
JOLIE VIEWS
"I think he's actually one of the actors working now who really matters," says Elle film critic Karen Durbin. "He has enormous charisma. And he doesn't need to greet the world with his chin anymore. That bodes well for his career."
L.A. Weekly film critic Ella Taylor thinks Farrell's bad-boy hype doesn't obscure his talent.
"One thing has nothing to do with the other," she says. "I wouldn't want him dating my daughter, but I think he's really a very good actor."
"Dating" might not be the right word to apply to Farrell's active love life. Still, if there are tales to tell "out of school," he doesn't do so. Celebrity magazines were filled with rumors of a fling between him and Jolie during the filming of "Alexander." But he talks of his gorgeous co-star with professional respect.
"Angie ... she's hard not to get along with," he says. "She's an incredible woman, a very, very special woman. She's brilliant."
Briefly married to English actress Amelia Warner in 2001, Farrell doesn't rule out marrying again.
"I have never lived looking that far down the road," he says. "Now that I have a son, I think more about the future and the fact that I want to be around to see him grow and do all the things he's gonna do. I would never say never about anything. If I ever met a woman that I fell madly in love with and she felt the same way, then yeah, I'd marry, sure."
His main desire is "the security of my son's future," he says. "I want that. And you can't buy it and you can't create it. I just want him to remain safe and happy."
Since wrapping "Alexander" in Thailand, Farrell has made films in South Africa ("Ask the Dust") and Virginia ("The New World"). But the big question is, will he be the next James Bond?
"As much as it would be an honor to be asked, it's not my cup of tea," he says. "And Her Majesty's Secret Service wouldn't have me on the payroll anyway!"
A brief history of hell-raising
BY HENRY CABOT BECK
If Colin Farrell is the best-known reveler in the current crop of celebrities (Russell Crowe apparently having retired into respectability), he is part of a tradition that goes back at least as far as the Roaring Twenties.
In those days, it was John Barrymore, grandfather of Drew, who reigned supreme as Hollywood's (and Broadway's) king carouser. In fact, Barrymore set the bar, so to speak, for all those hard-drinking thesps who followed, including his swashbuckling friend Errol Flynn. According to legend, Flynn and roommate David Niven stole Barrymore's corpse from the morgue for one last party after the Great Profile had gone to the big cocktail lounge in the sky.
The wildest era of decadence was probably the '50s and '60s, when Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Peter Lawford and the rest of the Rat Pack cut a swath through Hollywood and Las Vegas.
Across the pond, meanwhile, Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, each Oscar-nominated seven times, led a pack of two-fisted boozers that included Richard Harris and Oliver Reed. Reed died during the making of "Gladiator" (2000), but not before he had challenged Crowe to an old-fashioned scuffle that Crowe apparently dodged by retreating to his trailer.
To your health, gentlemen (and Nick Nolte).
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That sound about right. Colin doesn't do the shot well.
I sure would ****** you Mr.Farrell anytime. 
