Colin Farrell almost quit acting after the 2004 box office flop, Alexander.<\/em><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-name” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”Black Han Sans|||on|||||” text_text_color=”#000000″ header_4_font=”|||on|||||” header_4_text_align=”center” text_orientation=”center” custom_margin=”||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”] Words by Nikki Peach<\/strong><\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/flatplan-plus-content.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2025\/04\/imago805029817-scaled.jpg” alt=”Jennifer Aniston” title_text=”31st Screen Actors Guild Awards – Arrivals” force_fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_image][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”] Most Hollywood stars have at least one flop under their belt \u2013 it’s just easy to forget about them, because they\u2019re rarely ever mentioned. Why boast about a multimillion-dollar movie that no one rated when you can point to your latest, award-winning performance instead?<\/p>\n It turns out for Golden Globe-winning Irish actor, Colin Farrell, said flop was the 2004 war epic,\u00a0Alexander<\/em>,\u00a0directed by Oliver Stone.\u00a0Based on the life and empire of ancient Macedonian general and king, Alexander the Great, Farrell played the titular role opposite Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer. Unfortunately, by all accounts, the most epic part of\u00a0Alexander\u00a0was the fact it was an epic disaster.<\/p>\n The film cost $155 million (\u00a3116.2m) to make and grossed less than $35 million (\u00a326m) in the box office domestically and only $167 million (\u00a3125m) worldwide. It was also met with an overwhelmingly negative response from critics, earning a meagre 15% on Rotten Tomatoes.\u00a0Alexander<\/em>\u00a0was lambasted for being historically inaccurate and lacking the depth and grandeur needed for a story about such a gargantuan figure. In fact, the reception almost put Farrell off acting altogether. He was, after all, its star.<\/p>\n In a 2012 interview with\u00a0The Mirror<\/em>\u00a0about the film he said, \u2018That was tough. I say tough relative to a charmed life, but I\u2019m not going to apologise for how much it affected me emotionally and psychologically. I was going to walk away from acting.\u2019<\/p>\n Farrell has since revealed that he spent time in rehab following\u00a0Alexander\u2019s release and felt tied up in the negative press. Speaking to\u00a0Hollywood Reporter<\/em>\u00a0he added, \u2018The reviews came out, and I remember someone going, \u201cOh God, it\u2019s not good.\u201d I felt so much shame. I found myself in a place where with everyone I met I wanted to say, \u201cHave you seen\u00a0Alexander?\u00a0If you have, I\u2019m really sorry.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n Of course, Farrell was not to know that\u00a0Alexander<\/em> was going to bomb in the box office. Stone has won three Oscars, five Golden Globes and a BAFTA and the film was said to be his passion project. As a writer, Stone has worked on films like Midnight Express<\/em> (1978) and Scarface<\/em> (1983), and he is behind Platoon<\/em> (1986), Born on the Fourth of July<\/em> (1989), Wall Street<\/em> (1987), JFK<\/em> (1991) and Nixon<\/em> (1995) as a director. Collectively, his films have grossed more than $1.3 billion worldwide. It\u2019s not hard to understand why Farrell might have assumed he was in safe hands.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” global_colors_info=”{}”] To set the tone, though, one review of\u00a0Alexander<\/em>\u00a0reads, \u20183.5 hours long and you get two short battles. This film completely fails in every regard.\u2019 Another states, \u2018Even at nearly three hours long, this ponderous, talky and emotionally distant biopic fails to illuminate Alexander\u2019s life.\u2019 Another critic asked, \u2018How anyone can make a film about one of the best conquerors in history so boring I\u2019ll never know.\u2019<\/p>\n However, some of those who have revisited the film more recently have argued its original reception was ungenerous. \u2018Time has been kind to this,\u2019 wrote one critic. \u2018There are still problems, but they seem to matter less now, especially when stacked against the ambitious structure and length.\u2019 Another posited, \u2018A much better film than it has been received and reviewed, Oliver Stone\u2019s\u00a0Alexander<\/em>\u00a0will one day be considered a very good movie that sought to discover the underlying motives, flaws and successes in the historical figure.\u2019<\/p>\n It’s worth noting that few if any of the disparaging reviews reference Farrell\u2019s performance. The issue with the film was not his acting, but rather the scope of the project and its failure to do the story justice or capture its audience. Nevertheless, as the face of the film, it\u2019s hardly surprising that Farrell took things personally.<\/p>\n In December 2005, a year after the film came out, he was admitted to rehab. He had just wrapped\u00a0Miami Vice\u00a0and claims that after starring in a few big budget films that had underperformed, offers were starting to dry up. \u2018I was probably due an arse kicking,\u2019 he told\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>in 2012. \u2018I really was. I was having too much fun and being too loud about it. I\u2019m not saying that my hand was totally forced but, of the work that presented itself, I did the most interesting jobs. They were not particularly good films, and not all of them worked.\u00a0Cassandra\u2019s Dream\u00a0<\/em>didn\u2019t do so well and\u00a0Pride and Glory<\/em>\u00a0didn\u2019t do so well, critically. But then\u00a0In Bruges<\/em>\u00a0did. No one saw\u00a0Ondine<\/em>,\u00a0but I loved it.\u2019<\/p>\n His time in rehab allowed him to \u2018step away from the attention\u2019 and to reflect critically on the dangers of the \u2018energy that sometimes surrounds big films\u2019. \u2018To not be paid that much attention, as I was for a while for a few years, it makes you go, \u201cOk, so I\u2019m not wondering what people are thinking of me, because they\u2019re not thinking of me. So what the f*ck do I think of myself?\u201d.\u2019<\/p>\n It goes without saying that Farrell regained his footing. Not only was he named as one of\u00a0Time\u2019s most influential people in the world in 2023, but in 2020 he was voted as Ireland\u2019s fifth greatest film actor of all time. In more recent years, he has fronted several critically acclaimed projects including\u00a0The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Fantastic Beasts <\/em>and Where to Find Them<\/em>\u00a0and season two of HBO\u2019s hit thriller series,\u00a0True Detective<\/em>.<\/p>\n In 2022, Farrell acted in the celebrated science fiction drama\u00a0After Yang<\/em>,\u00a0as well as\u00a0the cult black comedy\u00a0The Banshees of Inisherin<\/em>\u00a0opposite Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan. He then led the US crime drama series,\u00a0The Penguin<\/em>, a spin-off of his 2022 film The Batman<\/em>,\u00a0which earned him the award for Best Actor in a Miniseries of Television Film at the Golden Globes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Those drawn-out battle scenes from the early noughties might have left Farrell with a few scars, but luckily\u00a0Alexander<\/em> remains safely in his past. His reputation in Hollywood has been duly restored.<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” sticky_enabled=”0″] Photo: <\/b>IMAGO<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Colin Farrell almost quit acting after this 2004 flop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":8953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"guestgrazia","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8951"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8961,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8951\/revisions\/8961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}‘I was going to walk away from acting’ \u2013 Colin Farrell<\/h2>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]