Background

Ethnicity: A 23andMe DNA test taken by Colin Farrell stated that his genetic ancestry is: 98.7% Irish.

Colin Farrell was born on May 31, 1976, in Castleknock, Dublin, Ireland, to Eamon Farrell, a former professional footballer for Shamrock Rovers FC, and his wife Rita. His parents' marital union eventually dissolved. He has an older brother, Eamon Jr., and two sisters, Claudine and Catherine. His older sister Claudine went on to become his personal assistant after he became an actor.

Farrell and his siblings lived with their mother in Castleknock, an area of newer homes just outside Dublin, near one of the world's largest parks.

Education

The youngest of four children, Colin originally planned to follow in his father's tracks, but he enjoyed the high life too much and found the idea of rigorous training daunting. At 15, he deferred from following in his father's footsteps to pursue an acting career. Farrell was educated at St. Brigid's National School, followed by secondary school at Castleknock College, an exclusive all-boys private school, but eschewed higher educational pursuits for a series of menial jobs. He worked as a warehouse painter, and as a busboy at a Dublin pub called the Elephant & Castle.

By his own account, Farrell was a discontented young adult, drinking himself into further despondency. His brother, Eamon, who would become a director of a Dublin performing - arts academy for youth, talked him into taking an acting class, and he went on to classes at the Gaiety School of Drama in the city.

Career

Farrell landed a television commercial for his first job, and then a part in a comedy series called Pie in the Sky in 1994. After dropping out of the Gaiety School of Drama, Farrell was soon cast in a recurring role in a British Broadcasting Corporation television series, Ballykissangel, about an English priest transferred to a small Irish village.

Farrell moved to London, England, to further his career, and in 1998 was appearing onstage in the play A Little World of Our Own at the über-hip Donmar Warehouse theater. American actor Kevin Spacey saw the play one night and was impressed with Farrell's performance. Spacey cast Farrell in his Dublin-set gangster flick, Ordinary Decent Criminal, and made the necessary calls back in Hollywood. Farrell soon arrived in Los Angeles, California, taking a room at the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica, and with Spacey's introduction went for a meeting at the talent-firm powerhouse, Creative Artists Agency. His hard work went on to make Farrell a teen idol and before he knew it, he had a Hollywood agent and a leading role in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland.

In Tigerland (2000), Farrell stars as a young, Texan roughneck recruit in a Louisiana boot camp, training for Vietnam. After a failed attempt at discharge, he tries to get his fellow recruits kicked out instead. In the meantime, he develops an unlikely friendship with a clean-cut, well-bred idealist. Farrell also co-starred with Kevin Spacey in the gangster movie, Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) as the youngest member of Spacey's gang of hoodlums. It was Spacey who suggested Farrell for that part after catching his performance in In a Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse in London.

Though his star turn as Jesse James in the western American Outlaws (2001) didn't score big at the box office, his performance was given the nod and he was bombarded with scripts for blockbusters such as Hart's War (2002) opposite Bruce Willis, Spielberg's Minority Report (2002) and Daredevil (2003), as well as low-budget features like Phone Booth (2002).

Farrell married actress Amelia Warner in July 2001, but they filed for divorce in November of the same year. Since then, he has gained as big a reputation for his partying, womanizing and drinking as for his acting ability. His son, James, with model Kim Bordenave, has Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. He and his current girlfriend, actress Alicja Bachleda, became the parents of a boy, Henry Tadeusz Farrell, on October 7, 2009.

While attending the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, Farrell proved himself a hands-on humanitarian when he ran into a homeless man outside a hotel. The man first met Farrell when the Irish actor was shooting A Home at the End of the World in Toronto, and Farrell remembered him. The actor took the man shopping and bought him a thermal sleeping bag, new clothing, and luggage. Before dropping the man off with his new goods, Farrell slipped him a wad of cash.

In 2009, Farrell won a Golden Globe award for his performance in In Bruges (2009) and in 2010, he won an Irish Film and Television Awards for his work in Ondine (2010). In 2012, he took on the role of Douglas Quaid/Hauser in the remake of Total Recall. The role was originally played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original 1990 film. Farrell then voiced Ronin in the movie Epic (2013), followed by a starring role in the dramatic biopic Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and the period drama Miss Julie (2014).

In 2015, Farrell starred in the second season of the highly acclaimed HBO series True Detective alongside other A-listers Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn. He followed this up with a role in the dystopian dramedy The Lobster (2016), a role for which he earned massive critical praise.

The talented Irishman played Graves in the Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) starring Eddie Redmayne and can then be seen in the thriller The Beguiled (2017) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017). He can also be seen in the dramatic thriller Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) opposite Denzel Washington. In 2019, he was cast to play important roles in films, such as After Yang and Voyagers.

Achievements

• 

  Colin Farrell has acted in more than 45 films from major blockbusters to independent films. Most critics regard his performance in “In Bruges” as his best role so far.
  
  Colin Farrell won the Golden Globe for Best Actor for his performance in the black comedy film In Bruges, which was written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Farrell and Brendan Gleeson took on the roles of two Irish hitmen who go into hiding in the city of Bruges. Farrell acted as an Irish fisherman in the film Ondine, a 2009 romantic drama directed by Neil Jordan. He received the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Irish Film and Television Awards. He also received the San Diego Film Critics Society Award for his work.
  
  This flamboyant actor was named one of the 50 most beautiful people by People magazine in the year 2003. He was also ranked sixth under the world’s sexiest man category by Company magazine the same year.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Ondine

    (A fisherman (Colin Farrell) hauls in an unexpected catch ...)

    2009
  • The Killing of a Sacred Deer

    (Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman star in this heart-stoppi...)

    2017
  • Dead Man Down

    (Victor (Farrell), a professional killer and the right-han...)

    2013
  • Minority Report

    (In the future, a division of the police department has th...)

  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

    (Magizoologist Newt Scamander's magical beasts are inadver...)

    2016
  • Dumbo

    (From Disney and director Tim Burton, the grand live-actio...)

    2019
  • Triage

    (After being badly injured on assignment, battle-scarred p...)

    2009
  • The Beguiled

    (From writer/director Sofia Coppola comes the story of a w...)

    2017
  • Miss Julie

    (Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain (Molly's Game) and...)

    2014
  • Winter's Tale

    (Set in a mythic New York City and spanning more than a ce...)

    2014
  • Pride and Glory

    (Edward Norton and Colin Farrell star in this crime thrill...)

    2008
  • Seven Psychopaths

    (A struggling screenwriter inadvertently becomes entangled...)

    2012
  • The Way Back

    (A small band of convicts stage a daring escape from a WWI...)

    2010
  • Alexander

    (The epic story of Alexander the Great, the King of Macedo...)

    2004
  • Hart's War

    (In a German POW camp during World War II, a racially-char...)

    2002
  • Miami Vice

    (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell go deep undercover in the ex...)

    2006
  • Horrible Bosses

    (Three friends, harassed, insulted, and terrorized by thei...)

    2011
  • The New World

    (This romantic epic brings to life the tale of Pocahontas ...)

    2005
  • In Bruges

    (Colin Farrell and Academy Award nominee Ralph Fiennes sta...)

    2008
  • Total Recall

    (Total Recall is an action thriller about reality and memo...)

    2012
  • Tigerland

    (A group of recruits goes through advanced infantry traini...)

    2000
  • Roman J. Israel, Esq.

    (Denzel Washington stars as an idealistic defense attorney...)

    2017
  • Daredevil

    (A lawyer blinded by radioactive waste fights crime as an ...)

    2003
  • A Home at the End of the World

    (Two childhood friends face their past relationships and a...)

    2004
  • The Lobster

    (A love story set in the near future where single people, ...)

    2015
  • Ask the Dust

    (Arturo Bandini (Colin Farrell), a young would-be writer w...)

    2006
  • Crazy Heart

    (An aging country singer finds redemption and romance with...)

    2009
  • American Outlaws

    (A Midwest town learns that a corrupt railroad baron has c...)

    2001
  • The War Zone

    (An alienated teenager saddened that he has moved away fro...)

    1999
  • Widows

    (Four widows band together to pull off a heist that goes w...)

    2018
  • Phone Booth

    (Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pi...)

    2002
  • Veronica Guerin

    (The true story of a journalist who exposes Dublin's most ...)

    2003
  • Intermission

    (Cillian Murphy stars in this urban story about the journe...)

    2003
  • Cassandra's Dream

    (Two London brothers are hard-up for cash, and both have g...)

    2007
  • Saving Mr. Banks

    (Discover the surprising backstory behind the making of Ma...)

    2013
  • The Recruit

    (A trainee is asked by his mentor to help find a mole in t...)

    2003
  • The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

    (A fantastical morality tale, set in the present day. It t...)

    2009
  • Fright Night

    (All hell breaks loose when Jerry moves in next door!)

    2011
  • S.W.A.T.

    (Superstars Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell team up wi...)

    2003

• TV series

  • True Detective: Season 2

    (Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams, and Taylor K...)

    2015

Religion

Farrell was raised an Irish Catholic, but at one point he was thinking about converting to Judaism.

Views

After Farrell's son James was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome, which is characterized by some by developmental delays and seizures, Farrell became a spokesperson for the condition and helps raise funds in support of families who also have children living with the syndrome. Farrell supported an Irish couple’s special-needs son in lobbying Irish educators to include him in the normal education process.

Farrell has been active in promoting tolerance toward homosexuals. He got involved with Stand Up!, an organization dedicated to ending homophobic bullying.

Quotations: "Desperation will allow you to do incredible things in the name of survival."

"We all try and strike a balance in life, but there is an ugly balance that says the better some people do the worse others do. That's a cruel balance. It's an imbalance."

"I'm in no hurry to get anywhere. I don't have any plans. I don't have a map. If you did in this business, you would destroy yourself. Hardship tends to unify."

Personality

When Farrell was backpacking around Australia in his late teens, he was accosted by the police as a suspect in a murder. The police artists’ drawing of the man in question bore an unfortunate resemblance to the actor, who had partied so much on the night in question that he had blacked out. He was allowed to go free when he provided the police with his friend’s journal detailing the night out, which was spent across town, doing MDMA together.

Known as a bit of a wild child, Farrell calls the six-year period of 2000 to 2006 his "lost years." After moving to the United States, the actor’s booze and drug-fueled partying became fodder for the tabloids, impacting his career by making casting agents wary about his reliability.

When Farrell finished filming Miami Vice in 2006, he checked himself into rehab to beat his reliance on drugs and alcohol. After becoming sober he told the media, "Basically, I’d been fairly drunk or high since I was 14, so it was a tough life change, and I was dying. I’m one of the lucky ones." He’s been sober since that first stint in rehab.

On his 34th birthday, May 31, 2010. Farrell quit smoking and even wrote a goodbye letter to cigarettes. That night he stubbed out his last cigarette at 11:55 pm and has been smoke-free ever since.

In April 2018, Farrell checked himself into a rehab facility in Arizona after 12 years of sobriety. The actor had not relapsed; Farrell simply worried he was heading to a dark place after becoming overwhelmed with all his responsibilities and film projects and might succumb to his old addictions for comfort.

Al Pacino had always been a role model for Farrell’s acting career, so he was thrilled to be cast alongside Pacino in the 2003 film The Recruit. After filming was completed, Pacino called his co-star Farrell "the best actor of his generation."

On July 20, 2006, as Farrell was being interviewed by Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, telephone sex worker Dessarae Bradford evaded security, walked on stage, confronted Farrell, and threw a self-published book-length exposé of Farrell on Leno's desk.

As Farrell escorted her off the stage and handed her over to NBC security, she shouted: "I'll see you in court!" She never produced an ounce of evidence. Farrell obtained a restraining order against her.

He has been diagnosed with chronic insomnia since the age of 12 and has a fear of flying. He also doesn't like to watch his own movies.

Physical Characteristics: Farrell has the name Millie tattooed on his left ring finger, above the knuckle which was a nickname for his former girlfriend Amelia Warner. Farrell sports two more tattoos on his left forearm, black cross and the Latin words Carpe Diem which means Seize the day.

Quotes from others about the person

• "Farrell can usually be relied upon to bring a spark to the bonfire." - Alan Morrison

Interests

• yoga

• Writers

  When Nietzsche Wept by Irvin D. Yalom

• Sport & Clubs

  soccer

Connections

Colin started going with actress Amelia Warner by the end of 2000. After dating for almost five months, they sort of got married. Actually, the young couple was holidaying in Tahiti and impulsively one day, decided to hold an intimate wedding ceremony on the beach. However, the wedding wasn’t legally binding and it was good for them as they separated some months after the impromptu wedding.

Colin started going out with model Kim Bordenave in January 2002. In 2003, she gave birth to a son, James in Los Angeles. Farrell met Polish actress Alicja Bachleda while working in the 2009 movie, Ondine. In October 2009, Alicja gave birth to a boy, Henry Tadeusz Farrell. Their relationship ended in mid-2010.

Father:

Eamon Farrell

Mother:

Rita Farrell

ex-girlfriend:

Angelina Jolie

Farrell hooked up with actress Angelina Jolie in 2003 during the shooting of historical drama, Alexander (2004). They were sleeping with each other every week, and she was deeply infatuated with the Irishman. But, Colin didn’t feel the same way which led to the breakup before the release of the movie. He even stayed away from her during the promotional events of the movie.

ex-girlfriend:

Britney Spears

Colin was spotted on many dates with singer Britney Spears in Los Angles in January 2003. At that time, he was promoting the movie, The Recruit there.

ex-girlfriend:

Amelia Warner

ex-girlfriend:

Kim Bordenave

Son:

James Padraig Farrell

James was born with a rare genetic disorder called Angelman syndrome which is a developmental disability. The disorder is characterized by seizures, jerky movements, and sleeping problems. Furthermore, it is often misdiagnosed as autism or cerebral palsy.

ex-girlfriend:

Alicja Bachleda-Curuś

Son:

Henry Tadeusz Farrell

Brother:

Eamon Farrell Jr.

Sister:

Claudine Farrell

Sister:

Catherine Farrelll

Friend:

Jeremy Renner

colleague:

Eddie Redmayne

colleague:

Katie Holmes

colleague:

Cillian Murphy

In late 2003 Farrell starred as a criminal who plots a bank robbery with Cillian Murphy in the dark comedy Intermission, which held the record for highest-grossing Irish independent film in Irish box-office history for three years and remains a cult classic there.

colleague:

Edward Norton

colleague:

Jude Law

colleague:

Saoirse Ronan

colleague:

Olivia Colman

References

• Colin Farrell: Living Dangerously
  2005