‘Alexander’: the movie that made Colin Farrell rethink his career
Colin Farrell is an actor that rightly receives kudos from across the board. Thanks to his roles in various titles such as Miami Vice, In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and most recently, The Banshees of Inisherin, Farrell is one of the most lauded actors of contemporary Hollywood. He has achieved a level of consistency that many of his peers often fail to do, matching undoubted talent with a sprinkling of Irish moxie.
However, things were not always this way. Although it might seem remarkable now, but in the mid-2000s, Farrell’s talent was almost universally doubted. Whilst his high-profile role as Bullseye in 2003’s Daredevil significantly influenced this reputation, things were compounded when he starred as Alexander the Great in Oliver Stone’s 2004 epic Alexander. Whilst the project performed well at the box office, the movie was critically panned, with fault found in many aspects, from its historical inaccuracy to duration, clocking in at nearly three hours.
Despite the film being a momentous flop and a major personal disappointment for the young Farrell, who held high Oscar-winning expectations, Alexander proved to be the turning point in his career. Without the lessons learned from the movie, likely, critics and fans wouldn’t be discussing him in such glowing terms today.
In a recent conversation for The Hollywood Reporter‘s Actors Roundtable, Farrell looked back on Alexander‘s significance to his life and career. Before his account, it was put to him by the interviewer that he was “shot out of the canon” at the beginning of his film career. However, things changed after the release of Alexander, which led to Farrell taking a step back and rethinking how he approached the craft.
Asked what changed, Farrell responded: “Expectation is a dangerous thing. There was a load of things that went on with Alexander. The most significant thing to be a part of was, you know, two or three hundred people who travelled the world over six months to tell this story and bring it to life. And it was a story that Oliver Stone had dreamed of since he was in college. So as grand as it was, and as loaded as it was, and as political as it was, and as thrilling as it was, and as violent as it was, and as sensual as it was, it was really personal. And it was really personal to Oliver, and it was really personal to me.”
He continued: “When I say expectations, we all had our tuxedos ready. I’m not even joking. There was some of the lads, yeah, we were all like, ‘Right lads, we’re off to the Oscars”, this is a sure thing. Because we had Oliver Stone, we had a story of that magnitude, we had script that was really moving, and really, kind of, just brilliant and so muscular. And then it came out.”
Recalling the heartbreak of the film, Farrell said: “But the reviews came out, we were up in Toronto, and I remember my sister Claudine going, ‘Oh god, it’s not good’, and Danica – who was here today, my publicist – going, ‘It’s really not good’. And I was like, ‘What do you mean not good?’, like, there wasn’t any shortcut, Rotten Tomatoes ‘What percentage are we talking here?’, it wasn’t that. It was what do you mean?”
Farrell explained that his sister and publicist showed him multiple print reviews that trashed Alexander, with headlines such as “Alexander the Boring” and “Alexander the Weak”. He then said he felt discouraged about how his work was recieved, as no actor wants fans to waste their time watching their film. He felt so remorseful that he revealed: “Everyone I met, I wanted to say, ‘Have you seen Alexander? If you have, I’m really sorry.'”
Only 23 at the time, Farrell started to doubt his quality as an actor. However, it eventually made him rethink his approach and get back to basics. Ultimately, this change of tact would give way to the most fruitful chapter of his career. His following two films were Terrence Malick’s The New World and Michael Mann’s Heat; that’s all that needs to be said.
“Alexander made me really go, ‘I don’t know’. What I had to do was plug back into the Colin that went into an acting class when he was 17,” he explained. “I was given the opportunity to just reconnect with the simplicity that should never leave the core of what we do. And that is curiosity.”
