Colin Farrell’s first noted screen role was as young Danny Byrne in the BBC TV drama Ballykissangel in 1998, and he hasn’t stopped working since. After an impressive performance as a rebellious draftee at a Vietnam War training camp in Joel Schumacher’s Tigerland garnered the attention of Hollywood, and it seemed like Farrell was on the fast track to superstardom.

But it seems that Hollywood was never an exact fit for Farrell’s talents, and he became as known for his partying and high-profile relationships as much for his leading man roles. After a number of disappointments at the box office, Farrell has largely stuck to independent cinema, and received rave reviews for it. Hollywood isn’t kind to every actor, and there are many, like Farrell, who find more success outside of it than they ever did in the inner circle. We’ll look at how Farrell traded his time in the Hollywood spotlight for a successful career mostly outside the blockbuster circuit.
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Related: Colin Farrell on His Particularly Successful 2022: ‘To Be a Working Actor is Brilliant’

The Next Tom Cruise?

20th Century Studios

Farrell hit Hollywood screens in a couple of underwhelming ventures: American Outlaws and Hart’s War. His following films, the thrillers Phone Booth, The Recruit, and S.W.A.T., fared much better in box office numbers, but Farrell’s performances kind of get lost in the action of it all. Critic A.O. Scott noted that in The Recruit, Farrell seemed to be struggling to “maintain his leading-man sangfroid while registering panic, stress, and confusion.” (After all, he was chasing Al Pacino, a tough task for any young actor.)

An Epic Failure

Warner Bros.

A few mish-mash years followed, with Farrell getting plaudits for supporting roles in Minority Report and Bullseye, but it still seemed like Hollywood didn’t exactly know where to put him. His career took a wonderful trip back to Ireland with the ensemble black comedy Intermission, which saw him as a thuggish, wok-loving, would-be bank robber along with Cillian Murphy.

But it was back to Hollywood for the historical epic Alexander, with Farrell playing the title role as the bleach blond Alexander the Great, with the questionable casting of Angelina Jolie as his mother, Queen Olympias (Jolie is a whole year older than Farrell). Unlike the other Greek epic that came out that year, Troy, Oliver Stone’s film, while not exactly a flop, had decidedly mixed reviews. Next Farrell, played Captain John Smith in another historical drama, this time in Terence Malick’s The New World, in a film that was well-reviewed but not seen by a wide audience.

He starred with Jamie Foxx in the tepidly-reviewed Miami Vice, and received good reviews for the overall-badly-reviewed Woody Allen vehicle Cassandra’s Dream. It was time for a change.

Branching Out

Universal Pictures

The Colin Farrell renaissance began back in 2008 when he co-starred with Brendan Gleeson (more on him later) in Martin McDonagh’s (him too) debut feature In Bruges. The movie was a dark and caustic delight, with Farrell playing a mouthy hitman who provides a lot of the film’s laughs. The film was a success for Farrell, Gleeson, and McDonagh.

From this point, Farrell’s range of choices began to extend beyond Hollywood. He narrated a documentary film about the Homeless World Cup, Kicking It, and helped finish Heath Ledger’s final film, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. He starred as a gaunt war correspondent in the under-seen Triage, and played a supporting role in Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges. He starred in the quirky, mystical Ondine, a fantasy-drama by Irish auteur Neil Jordan, as a fisherman who might be falling in love with a mermaid.

In the next few years, he bounced back and forth between indies and Hollywood pictures, maybe enjoying the blockbusters a bit more than he had before, in Horrible Bosses and a Total Recall remake. A second Martin McDonagh film, Seven Psychopaths, was more of an ensemble piece than the first, and he played a more subdued role. The pattern continued, a few Hollywood films, a few indies, good reviews, but less on the big budget side.

After a dip into television with the second series of True Detective, Farrell starred in Yorgos Lanthimos’ 2015 film The Lobster, introducing English-language audiences to Lanthimos’ singular style of filmmaking, combining creepy drama, black humor, and deadpan performances. Farrell was incredibly touching as a man whose wife has left him, and he has a very short period of time to find love again, otherwise, he will turn into a lobster. In 2017, he teamed up with Lanthimos again for The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and also starred in Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, both pairing him with Nicole Kidman, which is as sure a sign as any that an actor has made it. He also had an emotional turn in Thirteen Lives, about the daring 2018 rescue of the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave.

Related: Colin Farrell’s Best Indie Movies, Ranked

A Return to Irish Character

Searchlight Pictures

Which brings us up to date, and to his fortuitous third collaboration with the Irish dream team of Brendan Gleeson and Martin McDonagh. The Banshees of Inisherin cast Farrell as a happy-go-lucky Irish villager, content with his simple life with his sister, his donkey, and his best friend (Gleeson). Farrell is magnificent throughout the whole thing, with probably the most expressive eyebrows of any actor working today. And it’s been a joy to watch Farrell discuss the role and the film on the awards circuit, clearly reveling in the success of his co-stars as well as his own, showing up to the Oscars with his 13-year-old son as his date.

It’s no secret that Hollywood can be a brutal place, chewing up and spitting out hopefuls on a routine basis. Farrell’s talent has always seemed a little too expansive to fit comfortably in Hollywood, but he seems to have worked out a kind of stasis, dipping a toe into Hollywood now and then (he’s currently filming a Batman spinoff show where he stars as The Penguin), but really letting his talents shine in smaller, indie movies. Getting back to his Irish roots, working with up-and-coming directors, and getting rave reviews really seems to suit him.