Farrell feared quitting drink would hit acting

Colin Farrell feared he’d lose his ability to act when he quit drinking.

The Miami Vice star has been off the drink for seven years, but told US chat show host Ellen DeGeneres he was “cooked” for much of his Hollywood breakthrough, but he worried that booze gave him the edge he needed for demanding roles — and that he’d be lost without it.

“I was terrified that whatever my capacity as an actor was... however little or large it was, it would completely disappear and that I wouldn’t be able to [act]... I ascribe to the notion that to be able to express yourself in an artistic form in life you have to live in perpetual pain — and it’s nonsense.

“There’s enough pain in the world that if you’ve any sensitivity to you can kind of... feel, you can experience... There’s enough pain in the world that you don’t have to live in it to represent it in some artistic way.

“When U2 wrote ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, the lads didn’t live up in Belfast, but they lived on the island and they knew what was happening up there.”

Farrell, a father of two, said he was enjoying life on the wagon. “Seven years sober. I’m really grateful. It’s really lovely to be present in my life... It’s actually more fun.”

He admitted one thing was missing from his life.

“Straight up, you are literally the closest thing I have to a girlfriend,” he told DeGeneres, who replied she was flattered but it was “completely out of the question”.

“I don’t have a type,” said Farrell. “A human being, you know? I suppose kindness is kind of nice and sexy.”