Colin Farrell stars in the neo-noir series Sugar (Season 2), airing on Apple TV (June 19-August 7). Season 1 aired in 2024.

Talking to Jimmy Kimmel on June 15, the Irish actor said about John Sugar: “The twist in the middle of the first season was that a character who seemed like a traditional Los Angeles detective is actually an alien from a distant planet, but he is still doing his job here on Earth, trying his best. And one of the lovely things about playing him is that he’s an eternal optimist in a way. He sees all the ugliness, the cruelty and the violence, but he also sees the extraordinary generosity, decency, compassion and tenderness that human beings are capable of.”

“I know it’s acting, but you take the characters home with you a little bit. Penguin was so wickedly psychopathic and an absolute malignant narcissist, while Sugar is kind to his core.”

Farrell won his third Golden Globe (read my minibio) as Best Actor in a Limited Series for The Penguin, playing the villain he had created for The Batman (2022) by Matt Reeves.

He won his first Golden Globe for In Bruges (2008) and his second for The Banshees of Inisherin (2024), both written and directed by Martin McDonagh.

As a journalist in the Hollywood Foreign Press, I interviewed this charming actor more than 20 times during the past 25 years, starting from Tigerland (2000) directed by Joel Schumacher, to The Recruit (2003) by Roger Donaldson, A Home at the End of the World (2004), Alexander (2004) by Oliver Stone, Miami Vice (2006) by Michael Mann, In Bruges (2008) by Martin McDonagh, Ondine (2009) by Neil Jordan, Saving Mr. Banks (2013), Dumbo (2019) by Tim Burton, until Sugar this year. I always found him friendly and open to answer any question, no matter how personal.

I wrote interviews with Colin Farrell for the Italian magazines Marie Claire in 2002, Donna Moderna in 2003, 2004 and 2006, Best Movie in 2019, Voilà in 2020 and 2024, as their Los Angeles Correspondent.

In 2022 I excerpted what Farrell said about Alexander (2004) directed by Oliver Stone for my weekly column of Archival quotes in the Golden Globes website. Read it here.

But the interview I would really like you to read, by clicking on this link to the English translation on my Village blog of the text I wrote in Italian for Voilà, is when we met the candid, soulful and versatile actor at the headquarters of the new Golden Globe Foundation on September 14, 2024, and he talked about his son James, now 22, who was born with Angelman syndrome.

Farrell’s many love affairs, his brief marriage to his Ondine costar, who mothered his second son Henry in 2009, his battle with addiction, his loving relationship with his non-verbal son James, and other life obstacles, have turned him into a compassionate and wise human being at age 50, as well as a great actor.

Here’s what he said a couple of months ago: “I have to remind myself every now and then of the presence of a significant amount of decency and compassion that exists on the planet, because the abundance of violence, cruelty and greed is louder and more newsworthy. For my sanity, it’s important to remember that there are decent people everywhere.”