Colin Farrell doesn’t have many ‘true friends.’ But Brendan Gleeson is one of them: the actor-writer-director-musician who played the iconic Irishman in the 2011 film version of the Martin McDonagh-starring play The Lieutenant of Inishmore and has gone on to play Farrell in last year’s acclaimed HBO series True Detective.
As they sit down to watch the last episode of the show that started with them meeting at a party when Farrell was a student here in Dublin, the actor and writer-director-musician looks as relaxed and happy as if we were sitting on an outdoor beach.
Farrell, who lives in Ireland and the U.S., has been working on a couple of new projects, one which will be a big production. Gleeson is going to produce with Kevin McCormick of Bodega Films and the producer will have a very big impact on Irish culture.
Here we talked with Farrell about his experience in making the True Detective, and where he sees the show going next. It’s been the #1 show on Amazon Prime Video, and it’s going to be nominated for 2 Emmys tonight – and we won’t know who wins until they announce it on stage tonight.
Collin, you got out of college in the early ‘90s and joined the army. Did you really get together with any friends in the army, and what happened?
I was very lucky. I had a brother, Michael Farrell, who was in the army. And I was a regular at Army Canteen, which is all cadets. I used to just play my trumpet and sing. And I used to play the Irish national anthem, “Aengus Aingean,” which was the Army song. And, you know, I was doing that and there was a barman who would come up to me afterwards, and he would ask me why I was singing and I would say, “Well, that’s what I was doing on the day we won the fucking war.”
It was probably a while later that I realized I had gotten out of college, and went to the Army Music Service. And