Colin Farrell Quotations

Life is apogee, apex, decline; life is death - and everything else is open to discussion.

Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me.

But I dare not think too far into the future on the risk that I'll miss the present.

But we're born as children and we look at the world with open eyes... And we don't judge and we don't betray. We're not jealous. We're not envious. We're not even weary, which is a danger also as kids. They have to learn a certain amount of awareness.

I will say that as I get older and calmer and quieter in my own self, the one quality in a woman that I find more and more attractive is kindness. A sense of adventure and humor is important too, but I truly find kindness and consideration for others to be the most attractive thing in anyone.

I've never seen a moon in the sky that, if it didn't take my breath away, at least misplaced it for a moment.

I know what the important things are in life. I know that just because I pretend to be someone else for two hours on the silver screen doesn't make me a better person than the next man. So, I mind all those things. Simple things.

Anything that's different from your own realm of experience as a human being, whether it's driving a car or a boat, or using guns, anything that separates you from yourself and leads you more towards this character's existence is a big help.

The first time you hold your baby in your arms, I mean, a sense of strength and love washes over you. It washed over me and I never thought that possible.

I mean, we are tribal by nature, and sometimes success and material wealth can divide and separate - it's not a new philosophy I'm sharing - more than hardship, hardship tends to unify.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

I love the grandiosity, how sweepingly entertaining films can be. And I think there's a place for films that pry more into the human condition.

You're scrutinized all through your life - you're scrutinized by your family, by yourself, by society, and your friends in a certain way, shape, or form.

I've got plenty of love in my life already in the form of my sons and a few good friends who I value dearly.

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'd destroy yourself.

My Dublin wasn't the Dublin of sing-songs, traditional music, sense of history and place and community.

The sea always offers up incredible stories of survivors' fortitude. Myths of a lot of countries have variations on that.

You spend so much time in your head in life. And what yoga does is, it asks you to allow your head to be quiet, to allow it to be still, just for an hour and a half. Just deal with your body and your breath. And it's a great workout. I love it.

It's not that I'm stupid. I just don't think sometimes.

I love my kids. I'm crazy about them.

I'm just a true Irish boy at heart.

Vampires have always held a very seductive kind of lore and have always been some variety of attractive, whether it's attractiveness that's born of just the physical attributes that they have - this kind of ethereal beauty or translucent pallor - or whether it is more to do with the way they carry themselves.

I was never an A student, but I was really well behaved until I was 13 or so.

I'm not keen on cars and motorbikes. I tried to be a biker, but it wasn't me - I bought a Harley-Davidson and dumped it.

I'll be in Los Angeles for two weeks and I'll have a laugh, get battered and have a buzz, but at the end of the day, I'll go home. It's just me earning a few more stories to tell everyone at home and all.

I couldn't care less about who sees my bits... My friends asked how I could do scenes like that and not get excited, but it wasn't like that. My bits looked the size of a cashew nut!

I've realized as well after five years of being on the road that if I'm going to four or five months of my life to something even if I'm overpaid, it's four or five months of my life away from home, away from my son, away from family and friends. I better believe in it on some level even if it's a big movie.

Pain seems to be easier, or melancholy seems to be easier to portray in a character. I don't know if that's because I'm a human being or because I'm an Irishman or both.

I get excited about room-service menus! I really do.

I like to go for a little drive up the California coast.

I'm not painting myself as a down-home, modest guy.

If after you read something, you connect with it, you want to do it.

What my first son James did was allow me to care for something in this world when I couldn't care for myself. James saved my life.

I'm not going to lie, there are more interesting ways to spend your time than answering questions about yourself. But if there were no questions to ask me, I might have a beef with that.

I think I'm still trying to find my feet as an actor. And I know it ain't brain surgery, but it confuses me and it comes between me and my sleep a lot.

When we were kind of forced (by real life sniper murders in the Washington area that were too close to the film's plot) to pull the picture in October (from its Nov. 15 date), he wasn't nearly as big a star as he is today after 'Daredevil' and 'The Recruit.' He's become this hot guy.

On shooting American Outlaws: I kept saying 'Bang bang' and they kept having to cut.

He's great to be around. The man has incredible heart.

Terry was conscious of all those things and wanted to tell the story as he had read it in the history books.

I love working with horses. People say you shouldn't work with animals and children; that's wrong. You must only work with children, because you only work eight hours a day and I love working with animals. Animals have an honesty that human beings reach to find in their lives at the best of times.

Most of actor's work is done at home, in your hotel room, in the wee hours of the morning thinking and reading and feeling, walking around and listening to music. It really just because an internal exercise, whatever skills. It's great if you have to learn something new for a gig and designing a character physically is always fun but it does become an internal exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff.

I have a piano in my living room that I mess around on a little bit and when I asked Len [Wiseman] if I could find a piece of music, I went through a **** load of classical music to find something that I felt had a certain urgency to it, but also with a hint of melancholia and maybe a sense of longing. I found that which is public domain and I had a piano teacher to go through it with me.

I think there were six or eight weeks between 'Total Recall' and 'Seven Psychopaths.' I was at home in Los Angeles for 'Seven Psychopaths,' so it was the first time I had worked from my house here so it was great to be around the kids.

It as an argument between the world of emotion versus the world of the intellect. It's the idea that you can suppress a person's mind and a person's experiences, mentally, psychologically and intellectually, but you can't completely quiet them to the point of dormancy and the emotionally life a person. You still have the heart and what the heart remembers and what the heart experiences. And even that isn't important that that comes across.

I mean you can go wherever you want with it really. No matter what story you're telling you're always representing some reality. You are always representing human beings, their fears, their shortcomings, their braveries, their doubts, their loves, their abilities, their brilliance and those things inevitably lead to bigger political systems, foreign policy and crime and religion. It's an action film. We are not taking a stance about big government.

Audiences will see what they want to see. Some will come out, hopefully enjoying two hours of action. Some people will find themselves gravitating towards the emotional dilemma that the characters find themselves in. Other people will see that there is some layer of subversions to the storytelling aspect of poking a finger of judgment at certain governments to the idea of foreign invasion, others maybe false pretenses.

Hollywood. It lacks originality. Remake sucks.' But I had to look deeper into it from my own perspective. We are not trying to compete with the original at all and that's what allowed me to pull the trigger without any hesitancy .

Yeah loads of bruises and welts, usually around the hip, arse, thigh region and elbows. Elbows got knocked up big time, but it was so much fun. I hadn't done a meaty action film in seven or eight years, so it was fun to explore that aspect of storytelling again.

If you do a fifteen hour day on a film, there's a lot of time standing around but at the end of that, you want to go home to your hotel room and have a bite to eat, watch a movie and go to bed.

The original WAS a fun film. [Paul] Verhoeven made a couple of 'Robocops' that were so great, too. I think the level of excitement is great and Arnie [Schwarzenegger] was particularly charismatic with that chopped up English, and the size of the man with his confidence and sense of humor.

You have the upmost amount of energy because you're not just having a cocktail at the end of the night. You're actually not drinking alcohol and you're keeping your body really clean and it's an amazing feeling to be getting out all the toxins.

It's so technical. It's nothing personal. You're not fighting really, you're missing each other by a half of foot at least, ideally more and you get a few knocks and bruises. But with the kissing, you do kiss someone. Its lips on lips.

Women tend to immediately take responsibility if somebody messes up with both of us saying it's our fault. Men are quite happy for it to be your fault it seems like.

I am thrilled with my fan base. For some reason some of them are quite young, so they are quite frightened. I remember when I did 'Click' and I'd see Adam Sandler's fan base. He's the guy that people feel that he's their best friend, so he's walking down the street and people sort of high five him and want to tell him a joke or invite him to come home and have a sandwich with them. Mine are not like that. Mine tend to go: 'Argh,' and look horrified. They shake and take a picture from a really long way away. I do feel I've got quite good, respectful ones though.

I hadn't really met Colin [Farell]. It's really weird to say: 'Oh, hello, I'm Kate...I'm Colin.. shall we?' That's a bit strange. Len was fine with it. We've gone through this experience with Scott Speedman before on the first Underworld move. It was our little version of swinging. We survived that.

I personally just want to do as many different things as I can do, whether it's comedy, drama, science fiction, horror, narrator... You've got a documentary, I've got a voice. Animated films. Big films, small films.

I'm not going to experience the reality of hardship that sometimes my characters live in. I'm very cautious about that.

I think people are propelled towards violence, and what propels them is much more interesting than the actual act of violence itself.

Initially, less appealing to me than the idea of a vampire that is drawn by some misgiving or drawn by some sense of longing that he can't quite satiate.

I just adored working in London. It was in London where I first had the idea of making a film.

I think that is what you want to do as a cinemagoer - to experience something fully. Some things don't let you experience them fully. It may be your own preordained prejudice where you can't experience them fully. But when you come out of the cinema having felt, thought, and experienced your way through two hours, that is a really cool thing.

From my experience, the only thing you can do is take what's written on the page and try, through your own curiosity and investigation, to make it your own and honor what the original intent was.

You consciously look after yourself, whatever that may be to you, whether it's going out for a few drinks and a bit of dinner, or just hitting the couch and watching TV, or going to the gym or yoga class. Just being aware that there's a potential for you to be in it and respecting wherever you find yourself is good enough.

You have a certain objectivity, as a member of the audience, and you can come away maybe being provoked into a certain discourse or a certain arena of questioning, regarding how you would deal with things that your character has to deal with. Whereas when you're doing a film, once you start asking, "What would I do?," you're getting the distance greater between yourself and the character, or you're bringing the character to you, which I think is self-serving, in the wrong way. The idea is to bring yourself to the character.

It doesn't matter if it's a drama or a comedy, the need to get the emotion and the character arc across is way harder in something like this so was more of a preparation.

I got to work with Jared Leto. Jared's cute. Oh, I'll tell you. Jared will make you doubt about your sexuality.

At the end of the day, it's all one version of telling a story. I treated this as if it was a two million dollar independent film. I did a lot more physical work than I'd probably have to do for a two million dollar independent film with four months of training and stuff. But as far as the character's psychology or emotional life goes, I treat it just the same.

The idea of implanting memories where by the implantee couldn't tell the difference between a real experience and a fantasy experience was really cool. And his ideas of technology - do we control technology or does technology begin to control us? His work hasn't aged a day it seems.

Magic is at the core of myths.

It can be a bit annoying if another actor is trying to talk to the director and the wife is sitting on his lap.

I do enjoy reading some science fiction.

Girl trouble, for me, is when you fall in love.

I'm a big old romantic.

I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes.

I've started films like Miami Vice where I'm in really good shape and I look back on that film and see the moustache is bigger as I've got a larger face.

Her Majesty's Secret Service wouldn't have me on the payroll.

Every week a tsunami rips through poor towns and villages all over the world. It claims 25,000 lives a day, 175,000 a week. It sweeps children from the arms of their mothers, robs hundreds of millions of any hope for the future. That tsunami is hunger. Help us end it now.

There was a part of me that felt afraid of people in Hollywood going: '**** Hollywood with their total lack of originality!'.

I'm just a true Irish boy at heart. I'm just myself, I stick by my guns and I treat people the way I think they should be treated, regardless of their status. And I just have a laugh.

I was well aware of that when I heard they were remaking 'Total Recall.' My first reaction was: 'Ewww, really okay?' And the director said you should really look at it, the script is good. I had already done a remake. I had just finished 'Fright Night.' When I heard about that being remade, I had a whole ego thing... remake?. 'That is so uncool! I loved the original, I can't possibly do that'.

Seven years sober. I'm really grateful. It's really lovely to be present in my life.

I am more comfortable doing a drama.

Allow your head to be quiet. Allow it to be still. Just for an hour and half. Just deal with your body & your breath.

I take acting very seriously. I put everything I have and know into it.

Quite often on a movie like Total Recall you have this training period of two or three months where, like on the first 'Underworld' I was doing gymnastics and trampolining and all this stuff which I don't do in the movie necessarily, but mentally it helps. You come home and you go: 'Well, I've done all that. I must be an action star now!' So it helps you focus a little bit and gets you fit.

My Mum taught me great manners. And she always told me that you can be or do whatever in life, as long as you don't hurt anyone and you're happy. My Mum's great; I adore her.

I did loads of auditions and I didn't get called back. I still get giddy at all the people I get to work with, and I'm still enjoying the work and enjoying life too much that I don't feel like I've done that much.

I couldn't care less about who sees my bits ... My friends asked how I could do scenes like that and not get excited, but it wasn't like that. My bits looked the size of a cashew nut!

I count 'Underworld 4′ as my training period for 'Total Recall.' I do think it was hard because I didn't realize how tired I was. It is quite a lot to sustain that kind of physical work over nine months altogether and by the end of it, I definitely felt like I had aged quite a bit in that year.

Every week a tsunami rips through poor towns and villages all over the world ... That tsunami is hunger.

An actor said recently that, unless you're a parent, you shouldn't play a parent in a film. I don't know who said it, but I disagree. I understand that maybe there are aspects that you don't understand, or maybe this actor or actress had a really strong recent experience with having their first or second or third born child. I don't know. As a dad, I get that. I get that there is no love like it. But, at the same time, love is love.

If you need to get in physical shape for a film and you have to maintain that for six months.

I never think I'm capable of any of [action movies]! I'm always terrified, but luckily on this one it was directed by my husband [Len Wiseman]. 'I can't possibly do it. I'm too scared, I can't do it.' He says: 'Go on. DO it!' So it is shocking as I'm not one of those people who finds that stuff easy.

I do have the ability to explore life and to be over the moon at the smallest thing - a few pints and a craic in the pub and I'm in heaven. But I have a melancholy side to me as well. Acting allows me to feel things, it kind of buys me human experience. And I don't mean this as acting as higher cause, because it's not, but it does kind of have a higher awareness emotionally.

Sometimes I have experienced at the start of a film you're very excited and enthusiastic and you've done all your preparation internally and externally and you start the film and it's all go..... Then your attention goes somewhere else. Your energy goes into telling the story, so you don't have the same amount of energy to be objective, and that's okay because sometimes you become a subject of the story and you're inside it so much that you don't need to keep on looking on the outside.

Beauty is undefinable in language. It's something that you see when you see it, or you feel when you feel it, or you hear when you hear it. It usually encompasses all five of the senses. It can't exist without it being a somehow sensorial experience. But, I don't think it's quantifiable. Nothing is really quantifiable. Nothing is certain in love and friendship. We all try to understand these things.

Desperation will allow you to do incredible things in the name of survival,

Yeah, I know my way around some guns, which is weird because I have no time for them. I don't like them at all but I can take apart guns and put them back together and stuff, so I didn't have to go to the range. I don't think I will ever to go 'the range' again! I've done enough of that.

I don't go to the gym or practice yoga. And the closest thing I have to a nutritionist is the Carlsberg Beer Company. I just have the appetite of a pigeon.

I think, as human beings, we at times overvalue the intellect and we undermine the body. I don't mean a body externally and the shape of a body. I mean the intelligence of a body, the memories that a body can store, how a body feels emotion, and how a body processes emotion.