Colin Farrell has opened up about the intense time filming Oliver Stone’s 2004 epic historical drama “Alexander.”
The actor — in a joint interview with his “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” costar Margot Robbie for Collider — revealed that the Battle of Gaugmela was the “hardest sequence” of his career, noting that it was shot over four weeks in the desert of Morocco.
Farrell, after Robbie asked if the sequence involved elephants, clarified that shooting the Battle of the Hydaspes was “the most dangerous thing” he’s “ever been a part of.”
“They would say action and there was eight head of elephant, 200 head of horse and 800 background, 800 foreground, 800 x, 800 Thai men who would move,” Farrell explained.
“Wow, that’s crazy!” Robbie remarked.
Farrell continued, “Eight elephants, 200 horses and 800 men would go on action. One guy broke his leg on horseback, that was it, nobody died. It was a miracle. You couldn’t do it, they wouldn’t do it now.”
Farrell starred as Alexander the Great in the 2004 epic, which featured an all-star cast that included Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson and Anthony Hopkins.
“Alexander” — which was in development for 16 years prior to its release — is considered to be a box office failure, grossing $167 million globally against its $155 million budget.
Farrell, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2023, said he and others with “Alexander” had tuxedos ready for an award shows run and expected the film would be “off to the Oscars” before negative press began to trickle in.
“I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ I thought, ‘What can I do?’ I felt so much shame,” said Farrell of criticism toward the film, which received six nominations at the 2005 Golden Raspberry Awards.
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He added that the reception caused him to question himself as an actor, which eventually led him to “plug back into” the person he was when he walked into an acting class at age 17.
“I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to reconnect with the simplicity that should never leave the core of what we do,” Farrell said.