Daven Tamayo

HERE IN HOLLYWOOD: Colin Farrell’s big gamble

Article (news)

Yong Chavez

ABS-CBN News North America

<div><iframe class="instagram-media instagram-media-rendered" id="instagram-embed-0" src="https://www.instagram.com/p/DP2wPZikZgr/embed/?cr=1&amp;v=14&amp;wp=675&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fod2-workbench-web.abs-cbn.com&amp;rp=%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A7987101.100000009%7D" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="" frameBorder="0" height="925" data-instgrm-payload-id="instagram-media-payload-0" scrolling="no" style="background:white;max-width:540px;width:calc(100% - 2px);border-radius:3px;border:1px solid rgb(219, 219, 219);box-shadow:none;display:block;margin:0px 0px 12px;min-width:326px;padding:0px"></iframe></div><script async="" src="//www.instagram.com/embed.js"></script><div><br/></div><p>At a recent morning at the Netflix headquarters in Hollywood, Colin Farrell stands looking like someone who has already won the bet.</p><p>Not the loud kind of winning: there is no false swagger, no need to sell you on the myth of himself. Instead, he exudes the kind of confidence that knows it’s been earned.</p><p>He’s dressed simply, that familiar Irish charm as intact as it was when Joel Schumacher first took a chance on him in the 2000 war film &#x27;Tigerland&#x27;. Sitting across from him again, I couldn’t help but think: the man’s been gambling and winning all along.</p><p>Before the cameras roll, his &#x27;Ballad of a Small Player&#x27; costar Fala Chen greets me warmly as I settle on the chair for our interview.   </p><p>“Hi! Nice to see you again!” she said, complimenting my dress, a crocheted number with flesh-toned full lining. “Is that see-through?” she asks.</p><p>Colin, mid-conversation with a crew member, swivels around like a man who just heard the magic word. “See-through? Where?” he said, doing a comedic double-take. We laugh. I tease that See-Through is his middle name.</p><p>Colin has that effect. Even after years of press junkets and long interview days, he stays good-natured, the kind of person who tries to remember your name even when other talents never feel the need to. He repeats it aloud, just to make it stick. There’s something special about that. About him.</p><p>When we talk about &#x27;Ballad of a Small Player&#x27;, Edward Berger’s moody, intoxicating portrait of risk and ruin, Colin’s eyes flicker with that mix of subtle mischief and introspection that’s uniquely his. The film is about gambling — in casinos and with the self. Naturally, I ask him about the biggest gamble of his life. </p><p>“It was a bit of a gamble getting on a plane and coming over to Los Angeles the first time,” he says. “I was offered a third season of Ballykissangel, and I turned it down to just come over here with no representation and no anything, no inside connections. I was surprised that it worked. When I got offered Tigerland, Joel Schumacher took a chance and hired a kind of unknown Irish kid to be at the center of that film. That was a shock.” </p><p>“I’ll never forget the day my agent, Josh, sat me down in a restaurant called Dominick’s, and he leaned forward and said — I had read for Joel Schumacher — and he just said, ‘I think Joel’s gonna offer you the part.’ And I knew in that moment. There was a shiver that went through me. I knew my life was going to change. In what way, I didn’t know.” </p><p>Then, with that familiar half-smile, he adds, “But yeah, everything’s a gamble, isn’t it? Relationships, parenthood, a new job, a new place to live. There are so many risks that human beings are asked to take throughout the trajectory of a life.”</p><p>Maybe that’s why Colin has always felt more real than most movie stars. His honesty doesn’t sound performative. He speaks about his characters like they’re part of his own anatomy, their chaos somehow familiar.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/celebrities/2025/10/17/here-in-hollywood-charlie-hunnam-talks-monster-kittens-and-skipping-sons-of-anarchy-1733"><strong>Here in Hollywood: Charlie Hunnam on becoming a ‘Monster,’ adopting kittens, and why he never watched ‘Sons of Anarchy’<br/></strong></a></div><p>When asked about Riley (or Lord Doyle, depending on how you see him), the morally unraveling gambler at the center of &#x27;Ballad of a Small Player&#x27;, Colin describes exhaustion almost as an emotional currency.</p><p>“Doing the work and working with your fellow actors and your crew, it’s kind of self-generating,” he says. “By the time we got to Hong Kong seven weeks into the shoot, everyone was exhausted. And it was kind of lovely timing that we got to do those scenes on the houseboat because there was a certain tenderness in those scenes and a certain presence of truth and vulnerability. (Fala Chen’s Dao Ming) is having to avoid vulnerability by putting on that fancy dress and going to the casino floor, which is counter to who she actually is and the struggles that she’s going through. And obviously Riley as Doyle, this big presentation is not living in any kind of degree of honesty.”</p><p>Beside him, Fala nods, poised and luminous even after a late night and an early press day. When I ask about her character, Dao Ming, she admits, “My first thought was, gosh, I don’t know her at all. I don’t know anyone who’s like her in my life, which really piques my interest and curiosity. It actually felt very distant in an odd way.”</p><p>That distance between who we are and who we perform threads through both of their characters. It’s also something Colin seems deeply attuned to in real life. He laughs easily, but he’s not hiding behind it. </p><p>He expounds on the film’s themes: “They are all themes relating to human behavior. Human beings resonate with me. Their hope, fear, love, betrayal, truth, honesty, care, disappointment, the grotesque, the peaceful… all of it. The idea of this man who’s looking for meaning and looking for status in all the wrong places, and obviously hasn’t resolved a lot of his past, I thought it was lovely.” </p><p>It’s tempting to call &#x27;Ballad of a Small Player&#x27; a film about luck, but it’s more about what happens after luck runs out and when you realize that the chips you’ve been playing with were never really yours to begin with.</p><p>And maybe that’s what makes Colin’s first big leap all those years ago — a young man leaving Dublin with no plan — so poignant now. Because every win he’s had since started with that one risk.</p><p> Ballad of a Small Player is now out in US theaters and will be on Netflix starting October 29.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/movies-series/2025/10/10/here-in-hollywood-inside-the-scotland-set-of-outlander-blood-of-my-blood-1737"><strong>Here in Hollywood: Inside the Scotland set of &#x27;Outlander: Blood of My Blood&#x27;</strong></a></div><div> </div><p>—</p><div><strong>A Small Gamble of My Own, Or How It Feels To Be A ‘Star’ For A Night</strong></div><p><strong> </strong>The night before this interview, I found myself on the opposite side of the velvet rope at the Ballad of a Small Player premiere.</p><p>I was invited not as a journalist, but as a “tastemaker” and an “influencer” — or so the note on the red envelope I was handed and the event’s guest-list face sheet suggested.</p><p>I can’t say those words without invisible quotation marks hovering around them, like a secret joke between me and my conscience.</p><p>It was strange territory. Instead of holding a mic or interview notes, I was told where to stand, how to pose, which direction to face when the flash went off. For once and for a few minutes, I was the one being watched.</p><p>“It was strange, but also fun,” I told a friend when she asked how it felt to be out there.</p><p>Cameras flickered in front of me. It was just another day for Hollywood photographers. I smiled for them, trying to look like I belonged, even though belonging wasn’t really the point.</p><p>The handlers and photographers did what they always do: they moved us along, their voices politely directive, efficient. It was oddly comforting to be told what to do, as though someone else had momentarily taken the reins of my usual role at events like this. </p><p>I won’t lie: a part of me liked it. The way doors opened with the right wristband color, the hum of being in a space reserved for a few, the way people momentarily looked at you, even if they probably didn’t really see you.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/movies-series/2025/10/3/here-in-hollywood-matthew-mcconaughey-america-ferrera-face-the-flames-in-the-lost-bus-1713"><strong>Here in Hollywood: Matthew McConaughey, America Ferrera face the flames in ‘The Lost Bus’<br/></strong></a></div><p>It wasn’t consequential, and it was fleeting, but also undeniably seductive. There was that feeling of being slightly more visible than usual. It’s not something journalists are supposed to admit, especially when we pride ourselves on watching, not performing. But there it was: a little hit of validation. To be sure, it’s the kind that evaporates as quickly as it arrives.</p><p>Of course, the real me couldn’t help but break the spell. After the red carpet, I snuck hors d’oeuvres out of the VIP lounge — tiny food usually passed around by aspiring actors at events like this — to smuggle to my colleagues working outside.</p><p>I tried to do it discreetly, but in my gracelessness, I dropped half the stash at one point. </p><p>There I was, crouched in a fancy dress, picking crumbs off the carpet. A security guard saw and smiled; I shrugged and laughed. For a moment, the illusion of glamour cracked, and I saw myself clearly again, which is a person who doesn’t quite fit in, and maybe never fully should. </p><p>When the real stars — Colin, Fala, Edward Berger — began to arrive, the same guard told me with a kind smile but a firm voice that “the red envelope time on the carpet has ended.” And that was that. The velvet rope closed. I was back where I usually am, which is in the vicinity of stars and subjects, but far enough away to actually do my job of observing, listening, and writing.</p><p>Later that night, as I replayed it all, I realized I wasn’t as detached as I liked to believe. There was a flicker of amusement, yes, but I also felt gratitude for the reminder that proximity to glamour isn’t the same as purpose. I didn’t feel above it or below it, just aware that I’m constantly straddling that divide: the part of me that observes, and the part that, occasionally, wants to be seen too.</p><p>Maybe that’s its own kind of gamble. When you let yourself be human enough to admit that a part of you can enjoy being at the party, but also knowing when to leave it. </p><div> </div><div><em></em><em>—</em></div><div><em> </em></div><div><em>Here in Hollywood comes out every Friday. Have a question about Hollywood celebrities? Contact Yong on Instagram: @yongchavez</em><em></em></div><script data-wid="auto" type="text/javascript" src="https://content.viralize.tv/display/?zid=AAFz8gWM8iRADsJr&amp;cid=ABot1Tc5FtT3VFyu"></script>

<p>In 'Ballad of a Small Player', Colin Farrell plays a man who risks everything to feel alive. But the truth is, Colin’s already made that bet years ago, long before Hollywood knew his name.</p>

In 'Ballad of a Small Player', Colin Farrell plays a man who risks everything to feel alive. But the truth is, Colin’s already made that bet years ago, long before Hollywood knew his name.