COLIN FARRELL

Date of Birth: May 31, 1976

Dublin-born Colin Farrell is the son of soccer player Eammonn Farrell, who played for the Shamrock Rovers in the '60s. At 15, he deferred from following in his father's footsteps to pursue acting, enrolling in Dublin's Gaeity school, but left shortly before he landed the role of Danny on the hit series Ballykissangel. The show went on to make Farrell a teen idol and before he knew it, he had a Hollywood agent and a leading role in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland (2000).

In Tigerland (2000), Farrell stars as a young, Texan roughneck recruit in a Louisiana boot camp, training for Vietnam. After a failed attempt at a discharge, he tries to get his fellow recruits kicked out instead. In the meantime, he develops an unlikely friendship with a clean-cut, well-bred idealist. Farrell also co-starred with Kevin Spacey in the gangster movie, Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) as the youngest member of Spacey's gang of hoodlums. It was Spacey who suggested Farrell for that part after catching his performance in In a Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse in London.

Though his star turn as Jesse James in the western American Outlaws (2001) didn't score big at the box office, his performance was given the nod and he was bombarded with scripts for blockbusters such as Hart's War (2002) opposite Bruce Willis, Spielberg's Minority Report (2002) and Daredevil (2003), as well as low-budget features like Phone Booth (2002).

Farrell married actress Amelia Warner in July, 2001, but they filed for divorce in November of the same year. Since then, he has gained as big a reputation for his partying, womanizing and drinking as for his acting ability. His son, James, with model Kim Bordenave, has Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder.

In 2009, he won a Golden Globe award for his performance in In Bruges (2009).

Filmography:

Dirt Music (2009)
Ondine (2009)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
Triage (2009)
Pride and Glory (2008)
In Bruges (2008)
Cassandra's Dream (2007)
Miami Vice (2006)
Ask the Dust (2006)
The New World (2006)
Alexander (2004)
Intermission (2004)
A Home at the End of the World (2004)
S.W.A.T. (2003)
Daredevil (2003)
The Recruit (2003)
Phone Booth (2002)
Minority Report (2002)
Hart's War (2002)
American Outlaws (2001)
Tigerland (2000)
Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)
The War Zone (1999)
Drinking Crude (1997)