by Paul Fischer
With a glass of red wine in one hand and cigarette in the
other, Colin Farrell unhesitatingly 
admits that stepping
into the shoes of Oliver Stone's Alexander is not only his toughest acting
gig to date but "maybe
the toughest thing I'll ever do. There's not going to be many parts that
pop up like it." Typically ebullient as he holds court in a Los
Angeles hotel room, Farrell admits working with the often intense Oliver
Stone, had their share of arguments on the set, but only for the good
of Stone's ferociously passionate project. "You inevitably have
conflict of how to get that interest realised and so in respect to that,
we'd rub up against each other at times. Oliver's so smart, so articulate,
knows the piece so well and loves it so much that it was never
a bad thing. But he's a task master and he pushes and pushes you, regardless
of whether you're in the crew
or you're part of the cast and he pushes himself just as much, if not
more. Like Alexander did, Oliver leads from the front and would never
ask you to do something that he wouldn't do himself."
Conquering 90% of the known world by the age of 25, Alexander the Great (Farrell), who succeeded to the throne following the assassination of his father Phillip of Macedonia (Val Kilmer), led his armies through 22,000 miles of sieges and conquests in just eight years. Coming out of tiny Macedonia, Alexander led his armies against the mighty Persian Empire, drove west to Egypt, and finally made his way east to India. The movie concentrates on those eight years of battles, as well as his relationship with his boyhood friend and battle mate, Hephaestion and the often tumultuous relationships he had with two important women in his life: his mother, the power hungry and manipulative Olympias (Angelina Jolie) and his wife, the sexy, and domineering Roxane (Rosario Dawson). Yet it is Alexander's bisexuality [a complete non-issue during this period] that seems to have attracted the attention of the press, about which Farrell is not surprised, because of the "boring world we live in. Everyone's so narrow-minded that they have to boil everything down to sex. So obvious," he laughs, quietly angry that those elements of Alexander are even being brought up. "But I'm not surprised at all, because people have such a closed-up and linear way of thinking, a lot of the time, in respect to those things."
Alexander drank hard, fought hard and even loved hard, yet Farrell says there is not too much in the man with which the Irish actor could identify. "Because you need to find somewhere in you that can believe what he believed and can believe the things that he believed to be possible, is possible. You have to find something in yourself that can agree with his philosophies, so in that respect, I did. I read a lot about him, I thought a lot about him. I fell in love with him in many respects. But I found him to have had an incredibly sad life, and one filled with great glory, promise, achievement and massive wealth, king of the world and could have anyone he wanted as a lover. But one hears stories of the isolation of leadership and how lonely it is at the top, because you're never going to please everybody, you're always going to have enemies, and you're always going to have to cope even if you have fans and supporters." Farrell disagrees that there are parallels between that life and that of a movie star. "No, it's a different life; one that's far too easy. If I went in for that kind of thing, [making] those kinds of comparisons, I would start to diminish the experience that was being him."
Never afraid of speaking his mind, Farrell handles the media with a refreshing honesty that rarely exists here in Hollywood. He says that he never planned it that way. "Maybe if I did plan, I'd fall into the trap of having some defense mechanisms. I just go to work and I'm asked questions about it and answer as best I can." This despite recent magazine stories that dealt with drug use and other facets of a private life that remain fascinating to his fans. Farrell says that, these days, he tries to be less candid about his private life. "I'll say it's great to be a Dad and all that stuff but I'll never talk about my son or about his mother at all. I never talk about anyone else's business or my experience with anyone else. I've talked consistently, and repetitively, about my past experiences, individually to me and what they meant at the time, the way they happened at the time and what happened at the time. I've done that to death, finished with that, so what are we going to talk about now? Oh yeah, I'd better talk about the work now."
Farrell has no regrets, he says, about the wild , carousing image that that we remember from the actor's earliest stints, an image not too dissimilar from the young Richard Harris and Peter O'Toole a generation earlier. "No regrets, man. This is damaging? I'm here five years later, man, have done the biggest film in my career and just finished working with Terry Malick, so it hasn't been damaging, but it was never cultivated. I haven't changed that much. I've been through a lot, so for me to stay the same, for any of us to stay the same in our lives, would be a shame. We have a chance to change and grow. It doesn't mean I don't get up to some mischief and that I don't have a good time and enjoy my life, but I've seen certain things that affect me in certain ways, and I hope I continue to change as we all should. Evolution shouldn't just be about time spans of a thousand years, but could happen in one person's life for them."
As for Farrell's professional future, Farrell is tipped to be in Michael Mann's feature version of Miami Vice but says that nothing is final. "I'm not even definitely in it. No, there's one guy, Jamie Foxx I believe, who is." But he has read Mann's script and loves what he sees as being a take on the classic TV series. "It's really brilliantly written, it's great, and goes deep into the undercover world. It's Michael Mann doing what he did, in a different way of course. His writing is heavy, tough and with some of the great dialogue he's written. He's a great film maker and he does this kind of genre thing so beautifully that it would be an amazing opportunity." As for Pierce Brosnan's endorsement of Farrell as the next James Bond, "that bastard was doing it as a joke. There are certain things I don't want to do, and de-mystifying Bond is one of them. I'll put my ten dollars on the table and watch the Bond I've been watching as a kid. I don't need to go there. Besides, they won't come near me-- Her Majesty's Secret Service wouldn't have me on the payroll," he laughs.