{"id":253671,"date":"2025-09-25T13:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253671\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:19:14","slug":"colin-farell-talks-addiction-luck-in-ballad-of-a-small-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/253671\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Farell Talks Addiction, Luck in ‘Ballad of a Small Player’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tColin Farrell, who is at the San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival<\/a> with Edward Berger<\/a>\u2019s \u201cBallad of a Small Player<\/a>,\u201d spoke at the film\u2019s press conference about his preparation to play gambling addict Lord Doyle in the fast-paced thriller. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty well-chronicled now my history with addiction, but I don\u2019t think you have to be an addict to play an addict,\u201d he said frankly. \u201cI found [Doyle\u2019s] internal push and pull to be a lovely place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe is somebody who doesn\u2019t believe in his own worth, who is very self-centered to the point of being despicable,\u201d he continued. \u201cI still don\u2019t have answers to anything in the script; I just have the experience of being in front of the camera with my fellow actors. As far as preparations go, I suppose I have some form of OCD that is given good life in regard to acting because you get to obsess about the characters and maybe imagine their history, their own personal kind of origin story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBallad of a Small Player\u201d is playing in official selection at the Basque festival just a year after Berger\u2019s \u201cConclave\u201d bowed at the same event. Adapted from Lawrence Osborne\u2019s novel, the film finds Lord Doyle adrift in the Eastern gambling mecca of Macau as his past and debts catch up with him. Close to breaking point, the man encounters a kindred spirit who might just hold the key to his salvation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking about the practicalities of playing a gambler, Farrell recalled spending time within Macau\u2019s sprawling casinos and learning about an addiction he is \u201cthankful\u201d to not have experienced. \u201cGambling is one affliction that never really came near me. I\u2019m glad to say I only damaged my body and my brain, not my bank account.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was interesting to see some of the high rollers in Macau. They put down some very serious money. One day backstage, one of the floor managers said, \u2018We had two players last night and the house did pretty well.\u2019 I said, \u2018What\u2019s pretty well to the house?,\u2019 and he said, \u2018At the end of four hours of playing, we were up to 24 million [Hong Kong Dollars].\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe opportunity is there, that kind of aspiration to have that moment of good fortune and live the life you feel will give you the ultimate joy and the ultimate happiness,\u201d he added. \u201cWe all kind of understand at this stage from looking to each other and the world that materials are fine and great \u2014 and I say that as someone very fortunate to have experienced a lot of material things in my life \u2014 but if you\u2019re looking for contentment, happiness, joy, connection, it\u2019s fool\u2019s gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about the ins and outs of card playing in the film, Farrell said it got a bit \u201ctedious\u201d at times due to the repetition. \u201cWe spent a lot of time on casino floors during the making of this film, and I can\u2019t say it didn\u2019t get tedious at certain times, but [Edward] knew it wasn\u2019t always about being excited at that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFarrell praised how Berger approached inserts with background information in both \u201cBallad\u201d and \u201cConclave,\u201d stating that \u201ctoo many inserts can be didactic and lead my attention somewhere I don\u2019t feel it needs to go towards, but with Edward, the first five minutes of \u2018Conclave\u2019 have a completely cinematic language to his use of inserts.\u201d With \u201cBallad,\u201d even if Farrell found the repetition morose, he said it was still \u201ca joy to be around\u201d the director and witness \u201cthe incredible creative language happening\u201d at those moments of technical craft.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked about his thoughts on luck, given that his Lord Doyle is a man perpetually chasing the elusive concept, the Irish actor said: \u201cWe can never choose how life confronts us. We can choose how to respond to that confrontation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYou just meet life where it meets you, and you do the best you can,\u201d he continued. \u201cSomebody who lives in a 30 thousand square foot mansion in Bel Air could put 20 dollars in a dog race and lose and say, \u2018Jesus, I\u2019m really unlucky.\u2019 It\u2019s very subjective, the idea of luck. You do the best you can and try to serve your true self, the people you love, and your community. That is certainly not what Doyle is doing in this film at all. He is serving the lowest ethical, moral aspect of his internal life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBallad of a Small Player\u201d opens in U.S. theaters on Oct. 15, arrives in the U.K. and Ireland cinemas on Oct. 17, and debuts on Netflix on Oct. 29.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Colin Farrell, who is at the San Sebasti\u00e1n Film Festival with Edward Berger\u2019s \u201cBallad of a Small Player,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":253672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[94867,92996,171,53,130309,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-253671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-ballad-of-a-small-player","9":"tag-edward-berger","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-san-sebastiu00e1n-film-festival","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115265140506616809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}