Copyright New York Post
Nobody saw that coming. Colin Farrell has revealed why Tom Cruise “wasn’t very happy” with him on the set of their 2002 science-fiction action thriller “Minority Report.” The “Banshees of Inisherin” star, 49, opened up about the hilarious reason during an appearance on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Tuesday night. It started with Farrell, who was still battling alcoholism and substance abuse issues at the time, living it up for his birthday before going to set the next day while still completely hungover. “I had one of the worst days I’ve ever had on a film set,” he began. “It was my birthday on May 31, and we were shooting. I begged production – who did I think I was? – of a $120 million film if they [could] not have me working on my birthday.” “So, of course, my pickup was 6 a.m. on May 31, and I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before,” Farrell continued. “I remember getting into bed, and as soon as I turned off the light, the phone rang, and the driver said, ‘It’s 10 past 6.’ I went, ‘Oh, s–t.'” The “Penguin” star went on to recall that the film’s first assistant director, David H. Venghaus Jr., met him at the shoot and immediately expressed concern that Farrell couldn’t “go to the set like this.” “And I went, ‘Just get me six Pacifico Cervezas and a packet of 20 [Marlboro] Red,’” Farrell said to laughter and applause. “Now, listen, it’s not cool because two years later I went to rehab, right?” “But it worked in the moment,” he added. “All the holy people that we look to on how to live a life would say the present is all that counts.” After having “a couple of beers,” the “Phone Booth” star walked onto set to shoot his “Minority Report” scenes that day. However, he had some trouble getting started. “It was terrible,” Farrell said. “I will never forget the line I had that I couldn’t get out. It was, ‘I’m sure you’ve all grasped the fundamental paradox of pre-crime methodology.’ That was the line that started the scene.” “I remember [the crew] coming up and saying, ‘Do you want to go out and take a breath of fresh air?’ And I remember thinking, ‘If I go out and take a breath of fresh air, then I’ll be under more pressure when I come back in to be better,'” he continued. “And I went, ‘No, we’ll just go through it.’” Cruise, meanwhile, was beginning to get fed up with Farrell’s drunken antics at this point in the production. “We did 46 takes,” the Oscar nominee revealed. “Tom wasn’t very happy with me. Tom, who I love, was not very happy!” Based on Philip K. Dick’s 1956 novella of the same name, “Minority Report” is an action-detective thriller set in Washington, DC, in the year 2054. Police utilize a psychic technology to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crimes, and Cruise, 63, plays the head of a Precrime unit named John Anderton who is accused of the future murder of a man he hasn’t met. As for Farrell, he portrays Danny Witwer, a skeptical Justice Department agent assigned to bring Cruise’s character in.
