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Colin Farrell 'MY SON IS MY GREATEST PRIORITY'

By Eileen Condon

Bad boy Colin Farrell plays unorthodox vice detective Sonny Crockett in Miami Vice, opening on Friday August 4, the role originally made famous by Don Johnson in the 1980s TV series. He reveals why he wanted to take on the cult role in the new remake.

It's difficult to believe that Hollywood bad boy Colin Farrell first came to our attention as the shy Irish farmhand in the saccharine Sunday night TV show Ballykissangel.

He's probably had one of the biggest quantum leaps career-wise than almost any other actor.

In just a few short years the sexily dishevelled star has gone from virtual unknown to a major Hollywood player, earning a reputation as a hellraiser along the way.

And as befits a genuine wild, womanising, party animal, he doesn't try and deny the tag.

"It's not really damaging to me," he says in his broad Dublin brogue, "I'm still here making movies. I don't think I've really changed in the last few years, I come from a background where being decent, down to earth and respecting people were priorities and that's still how I try to live my life."

Yet, the 30-year old's real life is, at times, more dramatic than the movies he stars in. After his stint in Ballykissangel, he headed for pastures new, and immediately found himself starring alongside some of the biggest names in the business, including Al Pacino in The Recruit and Tom Cruise in Minority Report. But it was his off-screen antics which kept the tabloids busy. After a short-lived marriage to actress Amelia Warner he made a beeline for some of Hollywood's hottest babes including Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Naomi Campbell and Angelina Jolie - to name just a few.

Recently, he spent time in rehab for exhaustion and addiction to prescribed medication, but with typical laid-back Irish charm, calmly shrugs off the episode.

"Rehab didn't change me," he says. "It gave me some time to step back and have a look at the journey I've been on for the last five or six years. It was an environment that allowed me to have a third eye perspective on what I was too close to have a look at before. Life is life. It comes with good and bad and ups and downs."

These days the star claims to have given up most of his vices, apart from smoking and, of course, his famously ripe language.

His decision to sober up and lead a healthier lifestyle has much to do with his two-year-old son James by former girlfriend Kim Bordenave.

The couple are no longer together but Colin is clearly a hands-on Dad and besotted with his boy.

"It's great to be a dad," he says, his dark eyes lighting up. "That first time you hold your baby in your arms, there's such a sense of love which washes over you. It's a very beautiful and pure love, completely unconditional."

When he can tear himself away from baby James, Colin can pretty much pick and chose the movie offers on the table, but says his little boy has had a profound effect on the parts he now accepts.

"I've realised after five years of being on the road that if I'm going to give four or five months of my life to something, it's four or five months of my life away from home, away from my son, so I better believe in what I'm doing on some level."

One such project to tempt him back onto the big screen is the eagerly-awaited Miami Vice, a big screen version of the smash hit 80s TV show.

In this latest outing Colin reprises the role of Sonny Crockett, made famous by Don Johnson, while Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx steps into the shoes of Ricardo Tubbs, originally played by Philip Michael Thomas.

The series was as famous for the dodgy 80s clobber and bouffant hair worn by the two leads as it was for their crime-busting antics. But both Colin and Jamie got off lightly as the new version bears little resemblance to the original TV show.

"To be honest I didn't think much about good old Don Johnson when I was researching my part," says Colin with a cheeky grin. "If I was to think about the early Crockett, I would have been in trouble because I would have been arguing over the suits that I wanted to wear and no socks with my slip-ons and all that kind of stuff - and where's my crocodile!" he laughs.

Miami Vice 2006, directed by Michael Mann - who also worked on the original TV series - begins as detectives Crocksett and Tubbs learn that a high-level leak has led to the slaughter of two federal agents and the murder of an informant friend's family. Their investigation takes them straight to the doorstep of vicious killers from the Aryan Brotherhood and a sophisticated network of global traffickers protected by world-class security.

In the original series, Johnson and Thomas were probably two of the most famous double acts on the box. Colin and Jamie also bonded the moment they met.

"Luckily there was a deep kind of friendship and understanding between us that is born of sharing the same beliefs, just being there for each other and trusting one another," says Colin.

As well as bonding with his co-star, Colin also had to get intimate with the female lead, Gong Li, who plays a ruthless money-laundering seductress. A dream job for a ladies man, surely?

"It's actually much more sensitive than you would think," he disputes.

"These are two people who find each other. Crockett is someone that would have had one night stands over the years and never be emotionally attached to anyone, but he finds with this woman someone that seems to make perfect sense."

When he wasn't wooing the ladies Colin was in the thick of the action, training with real federal law enforcement officers who didn't give an inch when it came to putting the stars through their paces.

"We drilled and drilled," explains Colin. "Going out to the gun range four times a week for two hours a day and shooting off about 500 rounds per day. We were shown tactically how you hold a gun, how to lessen yourself as a target and how to have synchronicity and economy of movement that would allow you to take out your target."

He's back with a shooter again for his next film Pride And Glory, about a family of New York cops, and then begins work on the as yet untitled Woody Allen film.

But despite the dynamic career and non-stop schedule the star insists that from now on life will be more virtue than vice.

"Now I just want to watch my son grow up, be his friend and his father. He's my greatest priority in my life," he smiles.

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