Credit: Dangerous Minds / Alamy

For a long time, it seemed Colin Farrell was going to be a sad cautionary tale regarding the perils of Hollywood excess rather than a defining actor of his age, despite displaying the talent for the latter.

When he broke out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Farrell had everything. He was charming, charismatic, an absolute dime piece, and a genuine, once-in-a-generation actor. The Irish native was a pin-up, a comedian, a movie star and a thespian all in one. Therefore, Farrell was the natural choice for the 2003 thriller Phone Booth.

The film, at its core, needed an actor who an audience could spend the entire 80-minute running time literally trapped in a phone booth with and not get bored, even though the character is an arrogant douchebag. Yet behind the scenes, Farrell was playing dice with his life and his career.

After catching the attention of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise, who tapped him up in particular for a major role in 2002’s Minority Report. Farrell showed up for one of the biggest, most important and complicated dialogue scenes in the movie with the worst hangover of his entire life. It took 46 takes and nearly an entire day to get a single dialogue exchange right. Cruise swore off ever working with him again.

What’s more, the worst hangover of Farrell’s entire life must have been fucking apocalyptic. The actor would be the very first to tell you that he was an alcoholic and a drug addict for two decades. Addictions that began a long time before he ever broke into Hollywood, beginning when he was a teenager. Now, as anyone who grew up in the UK or Ireland will tell you, your teenage years are meant to be a time you get shitfaced and do stupid things, which Farrell took to another level.

Case in point, an insane story that Farrell revealed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, of all places. In the interview, Farrell recalled one experience in Sydney Airport when he was pulled in for questioning following a holiday in Australia. A few days earlier, there had been an arson attack from which the intended victim barely escaped with his life. Farrell obviously denied he was responsible, but admitted that he couldn’t remember the night in question as he’d been partying too hard with his friends.

After which, the police provided Farrell with a pencil sketch of the person responsible for the arson, who was the absolute spit of him. At that moment, Farrell genuinely believed that he could have been responsible for beating up a guy, then setting his apartment on fire in a drug and alcohol fuelled haze. Farrell was kept under police supervision for six hours until his friend came forward and saved his bacon. It turned out that his friend had kept a journal of their holiday; his testimony placed them on the other side of town on the night in question.

Though they weren’t entirely out of the woods, as his testimony did say they’d spent the night doing a load of very illegal drugs. However, a slap on the wrist for taking some MDMA is a lesser crime than attempted murder.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the wake-up call for Farrell that he had a disordered relationship with drugs and alcohol. That wouldn’t come for another two decades, but as the last decade has shown, getting sober has led to a spectacular comeback for one of the best actors of his generation.

Few people deserve it the way that he does.