‘Tom Cruise wasn’t happy’: Colin Farrell was so drunk in Minority Report that he needed 46 syllables in one line | film

Colin Farrell said he once showed up so drunk on a movie set that it took nearly 50 takes to get through a string of dialogue convincingly, angering star Tom Cruise.

Speaking with Stephen Colbert on his late-night talk show, Farrell recalled “one of the worst days” he had on set, both drunk and freshly intoxicated, on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi drama Minority Report.

In the film, based on Philip K. Dick’s 1956 novella of the same name, Farrell plays a Justice Department agent reviewing a program that uses psychological technology to predict murders, while Cruise plays a “pre-crime” boss accused of a murder he has not yet committed.

Farrell asked not to work on his birthday, May 31, but was instead given a 6 a.m. pick-up appointment. “I did all kinds of shit the other night,” Pharrell told Colbert. “I remember going to bed, and as soon as I turned off the light, the phone rang and the driver was outside saying, ‘It’s six past ten,’ and I said, ‘Oh my God.’

Even after an assistant director told Farrell he couldn’t work on his condition, the actor remained upbeat, saying: “Just get me six Pacifico Cerveza pills and a pack of 20 Marlboro Reds.”

Fueled by more beer, Farrell went to the set. “But it was terrible. I’ll never forget the sentence I said, but I couldn’t get it out. It was: ‘I’m sure you all understand the fundamental paradox of the precrime methodology.’ That was the line that started the scene.

“I remember one of [crew] He comes and says: “Do you want to go and take a breath of fresh air?” “I remember thinking, ‘If I go out and get some fresh air, I’ll be under more stress when I come back.'”

After 46 takes, Farrell finally got it done. “Tom wasn’t very happy with me,” he said.

Three years after the incident, Farrell checked himself into a rehabilitation center to try to treat drug and alcohol addiction, and did the same again in 2018 as a “precautionary measure.”

In his latest film, Song of a Little Player, Farrell plays a high-stakes gambler who hides out in Macau’s casinos.

Farrell’s character in Minority Report is supposed to be completely sober, but several actors filmed scenes in which they were supposed to be drunk while drunk. In reality Drunk, trying for authenticity.

These include Fred Astaire, who filmed his “drunken dance” scene at a Holiday Inn seven bourbons away; Robert Shaw, who was so drunk before filming his main monologue in Jaws that he had to be carried onto the set; and Nicolas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas, in which he plays a self-destructive alcoholic.

Billy Bob Thornton also adopted acting techniques while filming Bad Santa, about a perpetually drunk Santa Claus, saying, “I drank about three glasses of red wine for breakfast…then I switched to vodka and cranberry juice, and then I had a few Bud Lights. By the time I got to that scene there, I barely knew I was in a movie.”

However, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher faked a model for Pharrell on the set of Empire Strikes Back, arriving on set after a concert with Eric Idle and the Rolling Stones. “I remember we never went to sleep, so we weren’t hungry — we were still drunk when we got to Cloud City the next day,” Fisher says. “We don’t smile a lot in the movie, but there we were smiling.”

At the same time, Cruz is known for his strict work ethic and conscientious professionalism. In 2020, a leaked audio recording of the actor berating crew members in the Mission 7: Impossible movie for possibly violating social distancing guidelines went viral.

“We’re the gold standard,” Cruise said, criticizing two technicians for standing too close together in front of a screen in Leavesden. “They’re back in Hollywood and they’re making movies now because of us. Because they believe in us and what we’re doing. I’m on the phone with every studio at night, the insurance companies, the producers, and they look at us and use us to make their movies.”

“We’re creating thousands of jobs, you bastards. I never want to see that again. Ever!”

The actor later defended his anger, saying he wanted to make sure the film’s production was not halted. “I said what I said,” he told the Empire. “There was a lot at stake at that point.”