Colin Farrell thought he was a ‘crap actor’ after 2004 film Alexander flopped

The Irish actor, who won a Golden Globe earlier this year for his starring role in The Banshees of Inisherin, said the critics’ response to the 2004 flick was the lowest point in his career.

Farrell played Alexander the Great in the blockbuster - which also starred Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, and Anthony Hopkins – and thought the film was an Oscar shoo-in.

“Expectation is a dangerous thing... It took us six months to shoot, on three continents. It was incredible. When I say ‘expectation,’ we all had our tuxedos ready. I’m not even joking. We were all like, ‘Right, lads, we’re off to the Oscars. This is a sure thing’,” the Castleknock man told the Hollywood Reporter.

“And then it came out. The reviews came out, and I remember someone going, ‘Oh God, it’s not good.’ And my publicist going, ‘It’s really not good.’ I was like, ‘Well, what do you mean ‘not good’?’

“There wasn’t any Rotten Tomatoes then, so they had all the printed reviews, and one after another was telling me to pack my bags, I’d been found out: ‘Alexander the Dull,’ ‘Alexander the Boring,’ ‘Alexander the Inarticulate,’ ‘Alexander the Weak.’”

Colin said the backlash caused him to re-evaluate his entire career and skills as an actor.

“I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ I thought, ‘What can I do?’ I felt so much shame. I found myself in a place where with everyone I met I wanted to say, ‘Have you seen Alexander? If you have, I’m really sorry.’ I’m not even joking.

“So I went to Lake Tahoe to a ski resort. I didn’t ski, but I realized I could wear a mask and a beanie, and I did that for three days. And then after that, yeah, I did question. I went, ‘I’m just shite at it. I’m a crap actor. I’ve been found out.’”

He admitted that he had to work really hard to get back on the horse after the setback.

“Alexander really made me go, ‘I don’t know.’ And what I had to do was plug back into the Colin that went into an acting class when he was 17. And not only the fellow that went in the first time, but more importantly the fellow that went back for the second workshop. I had lost that.”