Colin Farrell Biography

Colin James Farrell (born May 31, 1976) is an Irish actor born in Castleknock, Dublin. He was educated at Castleknock College and Gormanstown College.

Colin Farrell attended The Gaiety School of Acting, but dropped out and snagged the part of Danny Bryne on Ballykissangel, a popular BBC television drama set in Ireland. It ran from 1996 till 2001 with Colin's part running from 1998 to 1999.

He then had a number of small roles in various TV shows and movies until he played the part of Private Roland Bozz in Tigerland in 2000. Since then he has been one of Ireland's rising stars in Hollywood, acting alongside some of Hollywood's finest including Bruce Willis in Hart's War, Tom Cruise in Minority Report, Al Pacino in The Recruit and Samuel L. Jackson in S.W.A.T..

Farrell was married to Amelia Warner from July to November 2001. He has a son, James (born September 12, 2003), with Los Angeles resident Kim Bordenave.

Al Pacino, his original acting idol, has described Colin as the greatest actor of his generation. Farrell is known for his lighthearted approach to living, hard drinking, and was apparently smoking six packs of cigarettes or more a day during the filming of Phone Booth in 2002.

In 2004, audiences at screening of the film A Home at the End of the World were alleged by press to have been visibly distracted (with audible gasps) due to a brief frontal nude scene by Farrell during which he walked naked down a hallway. The film's producers claimed to have deleted this scene due to the threat that it might distract viewers from the real content of the film. Farrell responded saying it was ridiculous and when asked if the cut scene might be included in a DVD release responded: "That would really make me put me fists up. What would it be? Deleted scene: cock?" Eventually. the removed clip leaked to the internet.

In December 2005, Farrell voluntarily checked into a treatment center for dependency to prescription painkillers. His publicist said he was originally given pills for dealing with back injury pain. He was released in January 2006.

In July 2005, Farrell became involved in a legal dispute with another former girlfriend, Playboy Playmate Nicole Narain. He sued over the rights of a sex tape they made in 2003 which he claims he understood as being "strictly private and confidential between them". A judge in Los Angeles issued a temporary restraining order to prevent producer David Hans Schmidt and others from selling, distributing or showing the tape to anyone.

It's not known how Schmidt and others managed to get copies of the tape. Narain claimed she didn't give it to anyone and wasn't sure if or how copies were taken from her. She also originally claimed that she would work with Farrell to ensure that it remained private. But in a November 2005 appearance on MSNBC, she said that she and Farrell should commercially release the tape themselves so that they could profit instead of others who had copies.

On January 10, 2006, the tape surfaced on a website called dirtycolin.com. The site was shut down on the same day because of server overload, but reopened a week later. The tape then spread through bittorrent and other file-sharing systems. While dirtycolin.com was shutdown again a few days later for unknown reasons, Farrell's legal team added it and other sites that hosted parts of the tape as defendants in the lawsuit. A trial date was set for July 17, 2006.