Colin Farrell says he’s glad he never got hooked on gambling, despite being candid about his own battle with addiction. The Banshees of Inisherin star spoke at the San Sebastián Film Festival, Spain, about his role as Lord Doyle in Ballad of a Small Player. Doyle is a high-stakes gambler, but while the movie tackles that vice, Farrell said it’s the “one affliction that never really came near me. I’m glad to say I only damaged my body and my brain, not my bank account.” Speaking at a press conference ahead of the Oct. 29 release on Netflix, he continued, “It’s pretty well-chronicled now my history with addiction, but I don’t think you have to be an addict to play an addict.” The In Bruges actor has been forthcoming about his demons in the past, going sober in 2006. The Daily Mail reports the 49-year-old previously “had quite a high tolerance for various drugs for years... It accumulated to the point where I couldn’t put my foot on the brake anymore.” The same outlet reported he had been “‘drunk or high’ since the age of 14.″ In 2021, he spoke at the Dublin International Film Festival, saying, “After 15 or 20 years of carousing the way I caroused and drinking the way I drank, the sober world is a pretty scary world.”
Read it at Variety
