Having debuted in the critically acclaimed Tigerland, Colin Farrell has gone from strength to strength - appearing in Minority Report, Daredevil and starring with Al Pacino in The Recruit. Famed for his hell raising, drinking, womanizing and general Irishman on the loose behaviour we caught up with the man as he was promoting The Recruit.

You said that what you found about Al Pacino is that he's a good laugh, so tell us about the jokester.
We all would think, well I would think anyway that he'd be quite serious, and he was serious about the work - I've never seen focus like it - but he was just a funny bastard as well! He was so smart and so intelligent, just really good company to be around, you know?

When you see the stuff that's arriving here from your press conferences, do you never think, god! I wish I'd kept my mouth shut!
If I think it, it passes pretty quickly, you know? If I think about it I'm like "What the fuck! Not again, my mouth!" And then it passes quick. I go "You know what, who gives - who cares?" And if somebody does, that's their prerogative. I'm a twenty-six year old man trying to find my way in the world and I have opinions on certain things and the thing is print is difficult, because when I talk I have a certain way of talking and explaining myself and when you read it in print it can come across very differently.

But if I start mannering myself, if I start worrying about everything, I'm going to fail in trying to please everyone and fit into some idea of what anyone thinks I should be, I'm screwed. I will lose myself really fast in all this madness. So without saying anything for shock tactics, I just want to keep spilling stuff out of my mouth, off the top of me head.

Did you feel any pressure with Minority Report? Did you know it was a banker?
I knew it was a banker. And they all thought that it would do better financially even than it did - because it was such a double header with Cruise and Spielberg. I knew that it was going to be a big hit, but I also knew it was nothing to do with me. You had to chalk that down to those two other fucking names. No one came to see Minority Report to see Colin Farrell wearing a suit!

# I think there were quite a few young ladies that did…
Thanks! No, but at the same time I live in the real world and I know that when you've had the luck that I've had and the career that I've had, particularly over the last three and a half years, and these companies are giving me these large sums of money, they should get something back. It should be justified in box office return.

You do give the impression that the success you've had in recent years hasn't changed you at all. How easy is that to manage?
I just don't see why you should brown-nose anyone. And I don't find it hard not to - I don't think I've changed in the last few years. I mean I've changed, yes, but not as a result of the position I found myself in all of a sudden.

It's much more simple than I'm given credit for because it shows what has happened to some people in my position. It's kind of a statement on the business and on some people in the business - and maybe on Hollywood - that I get fucking kudos for being decent and down to earth and respecting people.

Do you plan to keep going back to Ireland to make films there and do you have some hankering to set up a production company?
I'd love to yes, on all counts. I'm just following a path now that hopefully seems to be preordained for me but I just, I'm tripping over each brick on the road that I'm walking! And I'm just going along and that's what took me back to Dublin last year, last August, to do Intermission and I know it'll take me back again.

Are you a bit of a mummy's boy?
Oh a total mummy's boy, yeah! Yeah, I can't get rid of her. Getting her onto the set is easy; getting her off the set's another picture. I'm a total mummy's boy; she's my best pal in the world. She's an amazing woman. Anything I am or anything I hope to be, I have to thank her for.

My dad I get on alright with, you know? We're not as close as me and my mother but we get on OK. But even regardless of arguments at times, they're both very, very important to me - and my grandparents. With respect to keeping my feet on the ground? They're probably no more important than my brother or my sisters and maybe a couple of my friends as well, but they're the important things in my life, and always will be and always have been and they're the things that haven't changed.

Did Daredevil give you a hankering to do more light-hearted escapist stuff or are you trying to avoid that?
No, I'm not trying to avoid it. I had a load of fun doing it. It was nice to just check the old subtlety in at the door…talk about an over baked performance! But it was fun; it was a load of fun. I've no major plan, I never have had in my life and I don't really want to start planning now, particularly with respect to roles and so on. Having said that, it could be nice to try and have a career, if I do end up having one that mixes different types of stuff all the time, just to keep it interesting.

Can you give us the best and worst advice that you've ever been given?
Pacino said to me that even if you're going to do big movies, if you're going to do an action movie, make sure it's something that you like because even with big commercial action movies you can sometimes find in the writing characters that are interesting and which you can be sympathetic towards and care about in some way, shape or form.

So if you're going to do that stuff, don't just do something that's shit and take the money, still do something that's big and might be the best thing in the world someday - but make sure you like it and make sure there's someone in it you want to work with.

And bad advice? I don't know. My agent's here, anything that comes out of his mouth really! I'm joking! God, look at him, I'm joking, I'm joking!