Lock Up Your Daughters

Fathers all over London kept vigil over their girls last night, standing watch to protect their offspring's virtue from the wicked ways of Colin Farrell, who was out on the town for the premiere of his latest film, Intermission. Bedroom doors were locked, chairs pushed under handles and watchful eyes kept glued to garden paths lest the lusty Irishman steal away the womenfolk while unsuspecting husbands slept in their beds. So it was that, despite a miserable Sunday evening with rain pissing unabated for the third day straight, Colin Farrell rolled up to the Electric cinema in Notting Hill alongside his co-stars and managed to turn half the cinema's ladies into drooling, hormonal schoolgirls. Drawing lazily on a fag and sipping from a pint of Guinness, Farrell laid on the Celtic charm as doe-eyed reporters shot off probing questions like "why are you so great?" as they giggled shamelessly behind their microphones. "I don't play to nothing," he defended, when confronted about his lascivious tendencies. "I ain't no bad boy, I just have a laugh like anyone else." His bad boy image is alive and well in John Crowley's comedic drama, however, playing what Farrell describes as "a complete scumbag" by the name of Lehiff. Joining an ensemble cast featuring Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy, Kelly Macdonald and Shirley Henderson, Farrell manages to provide more than a few shocks with acts of onscreen thuggery and the experience of working in his native Dublin made quite a change from the string Hollywood films the actor seems to have churned out by the dozen in the past few years. "Yeah, it was a blast man. I hadn't worked at home since Ballykissangel," he told us. "I knew everyone, the drivers, the caterers the costume designers, I'd worked with them all before. You know, people are always tell me 'oh, you work so hard.' No I don't, I get fucking four weeks off between jobs, man and I'm lucky enough to do something I love. I don't feel tired." Bearing the bleached blonde locks required by his latest project, Farrell was fresh from shooting Oliver Stone's epic Alexander in Morocco, where he's found himself at the head of a Grecian army and enjoying the most high-profile role of his career so far. "It's going well, I'm enjoying it. We shot three weeks of a battle scene in Morocco, it was insane man, fucking madness." Surrounded by his co-stars, friends and a bunch of people he'd never even seen before, Farrell slipped off to the bar to down a few bevvies with his mates before the film kicked off. After all, that's the whole point in coming isn't it? "There's a bunch of Paddies here who just flew in," he said. "They've got nothing to do with the fucking film, they're all just here to be on the piss."