Colin Farrell is a refreshing break from the PR spin most actors give in interviews about their careers. The latest example is his talk yesterday with Tavis Smiley on PBS. Smiley presses him on a question about the large-scale failure of Alexander, the 2004 Oliver Stone-directed epic. While we might talk about his True Detective role as a comeback, around 2004, there were few male actors around the age of 30 who were as recognizable as Farrell. Things didn't work out as planned. Alexander confused both audiences and critics and barely made back its budget (though it has redeemed itself in some ways). Then there was The New World (2005), a beautiful historical drama you almost certainly haven't seen, and Miami Vice, another monster-budget movie with a relatively small audience. 

Suddenly Farrell was no longer the super-famous young guy in Hollywood everyone wanted to hire. He's frank about this to Smiley, saying of the blowback from Alexander: "That one made me question why I was doing it." He goes on:

It all happened really, really fast. Alexander and then Miami Vice, which were films that were very big and that didn't work so much critically and didn't work so much financially and I was made to feel aware of the fact that all of a sudden, things that I was in weren't working. So it just made me go, "Wow, OK." So I can't believe in the lie that's being presented to me anymore that I'm a movie star and that everything is great. I have this No. 1 movie, that one. Everyone is telling me now that that's gone. So it was kind of like, ugh...all of it's a delusion. Telling me it's gone is a delusion. Ever believing that it was there in the first place is a delusion.

No doubt many actors who have had their ups and downs in the industry can relate, but few put it in terms as blunt as Farrell's. Fortunately, after those dips, he says, "Now, I still care, but I care less really. And it's freed me up. That's the irony, it's freed me up." Cheers to that. We'd much rather re-watch In Bruges than see another swords epic, anyway.

You can watch the clip from the interview at Gawker.