‘Tom Cruise was not happy’: Colin Farrell was so drunk on Minority Report he needed 46 takes for a single line

The Irish actor has revealed that energetic birthday celebrations caused problems on the set of Spielberg’s 2002 film

Colin Farrell has said that he once showed up so drunk to a film set he needed almost 50 takes to convincingly get through a line of dialogue, angering co-star Tom Cruise.

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on his late-night talk show, Farrell recalled “one of the worst days” he’d ever experienced on set, both hungover and freshly intoxicated on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 sci-fi drama Minority Report.

In the film, based on Philip K Dick’s 1956 novella of the same name, Farrell plays a Department of Justice agent who audits a programme using psychic technology to predict murders, while Cruise is a “Precrime” chief accused of a murder he hasn’t yet committed.

Farrell had requested not to work on his birthday, 31 May, but instead had been issued with a 6am pickup time. “I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before,” Farrell told Colbert. “I remember getting into bed, and as soon as I turned off the light, the phone rang and it was the driver outside saying, ‘It’s 10 past six,’ and I went, ‘Oh shit.’”