The Men Of Hollywood

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Irish actor and tabloid favorite Colin Farrell says reports he is shedding his bad boy image are premature.

Entertainment Weekly wrote earlier in April that Farrell was turning a new leaf, quoting the actor saying, "I realized I'd lost sight of why I went into acting in the first place ... I had to go back and remember."

The article portrayed the 33-year-old Dubliner, in recovery from an addiction to painkillers, as a father of two working to soften his image, going so far as to appear on Sesame Street.

But Farrell -- equally at home on the gossip pages that cover his complicated love life as on the arts pages for movies from "Crazy Heart" to "Miami Vice" -- is not committing to personal reform.

"Other people have said that's what I have been trying to do," he said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday when asked to discuss reports he was shedding his bad boy image.

Farrell, regularly cited on sexiest man alive lists, is wearing his black hair long. He has bushy eyebrows, a goatee and is rake thin.


"I have never been quoted as saying that," he said, smoking a cigarette and discussing "Ondine," his latest movie. "You live your life and people try to categorize how you live your life, and that's the job of the media to a certain extent.

"I try not to concern myself with it too much."

If Farrell blames the media for his image, he has provided plenty of grist. An Internet sex tape with a Playboy model and the resulting law suits have provided years of headlines.

He has been sued for sexual harassment and is such a notorious ladies man he once propositioned Shakespearean actress Dame Eileen Atkins when she was turning 70, and 42 years his senior.

The man who has had more flings than hit films has found love again, on the set with his "Ondine" co-star, Polish actress Alicja Bachleda. They had a son last October.

"Ondine," which already has been released in Britain, sees Irish director Neil Jordan re-imagine the myth of a water nymph who would lose her immortality if she falls in love with a mortal man and bears him a child.




SOURCE