COLIN FARRELL (Jerry) is a native of Ireland. He won a Golden Globe® Award for his performance in the dark comedy “In Bruges,” which followed a pair of hit men who hide out in Bruges, Belgium after a difficult job in London.
Farrell most recently starred in the New Line Cinema comedy “Horrible Bosses.” He is currently filming the Sony Pictures feature “Total Recall” for director Len Wiseman. The film is in production in Toronto and also stars Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston. Farrell recently wrapped the Peter Weir film “The Way Back,” starring opposite Ed Harris and Jim Sturgess. The film tells the story of a group of soldiers who engineer a grueling escape from a Siberian gulag in 1942. He also completed William Monahan’s feature “London Boulevard,” based on the best-selling novel by Ken Bruen, about a South London criminal, newly released from prison, who resists the temptation to go back to a gangster life by taking a job looking after a reclusive young actress played by Keira Knightley.
Farrell was recently seen in “Ondine” for Irish director Neil Jordan, which revolves around an Irish fisherman who discovers a woman he thinks is a mermaid. His other films include Gavin O’Conner’s “Pride and Glory,” Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream,” “Miami Vice,” Oliver Stone’s “Alexander,” Terrence Malick’s “The New World,” “Ask the Dust,” based on the novel by John Fante, “The Recruit” with Al Pacino, “A Home at the End of the World,” based on the Michael Cunningham novel and Joel Schumacher’s “Phone Booth” and “Tigerland.” He also appeared in “Minority Report,” “Daredevil,” “American Outlaws,” “S.W.A.T.” and “Intermission.”
Born and raised in Castleknock, in the Republic of Ireland, Farrell is the son of former football player Eamon Farrell and nephew of Tommy Farrell. Both Tommy and Eamon played for the Irish Football Club, Shamrock Rovers, in the 1960s.
It was Farrell’s early teenage ambition to follow in his father and uncle’s footsteps. His interest soon turned toward acting, however, and he joined the Gaiety School of Drama in Dublin. Before completing his course, Farrell landed a starring role in Dierde Purcell’s miniseries “Falling for a Dancer,” a starring role in the BBC series “Ballykissangel” and a featured role in Tim Roth’s directorial debut, “The War Zone.”
Farrell currently resides in Dublin, Ireland.
CRAIG GILLESPIE (Director) gained widespread recognition early on in his feature-film directing career with the critically acclaimed “Lars and the Real Girl,” starring Oscar®-nominated Ryan Gosling.
For television, Gillespie produced and directed the highly acclaimed Showtime series “United States of Tara.” His direction of the pilot episode earned Toni Collette both an Emmy® Award and a Golden Globe® Award.
Gillespie resides in Los Angeles.
Q: Colin, what attracted you to this project?
A: I had done a lot of dramatic films and dramatic roles back to back for three or four years. I literally said to my agent, “I’d love to do something that’s really, really different and that has some comedy to it, something that’s fun.”
Then this came along. I was dubious about it, because I had seen the original when I was 11 or 12 and I loved it. I particularly loved how Chris Sarandon played Jerry and I had a little boy crush on him, so I didn’t want to like the script when I read it. I said, “They’re remaking ‘Fright Night.’ That could be a really bad idea,” but then I just really just loved the script and saw how this could be a lot of fun.
It was also very contingent on who was directing it, since that would determine whether the film worked or not. When I heard that Craig Gillespie was involved and we sat down and spoke, I realized it would be a blast to play a character that is unbridled by any human sense of fear, remorse, regret or compassion. The screenwriter, Marti Noxon, designed the character in a very particular way. She wanted Jerry to be the kind of vampire that is more malevolent, violent and cruel than the vampires who have been presented onscreen in recent years.
Q: What attracted you to this project, Craig?
A: Marti Noxon’s script. I hadn’t really been dying to do a vampire movie. I felt like there was so much of the vampire stuff out there and I’d been working on a couple of smaller projects I was trying to develop. Then DreamWorks sent me the script for “Fright Night” and it was a great blend of horror and humor. I love mixing genres and I couldn’t stop thinking about it and visualizing it, so I went for it.
Q: Did you consciously try to bring a sense of humor into the role, Colin?
A: No, I never felt any pressure to bring humor into the film. I think that was left up to David Tennant and Christoper Mintz-Plasse. Their two characters had a lot of the humorous dialogue and those boys know their way around humor. I was the horror and they were the humor.
Q: Craig, were you conscious of that as a director, that there was a split between humor and horror?
A: No. It had to be a horror movie. I wanted to make sure that the audience was genuinely scared at times and on the edge of their seats. The humor comes second and it’s about figuring out how much you can get away with. Much of the time, it’s a great release in the middle of scary moments, but even as we were editing, we might decide that there was one too many jokes in a scene. It’s a constant battle.
For Colin’s character, it was more important that he was having fun as a villain. That’s what makes great villains for me, is that they have a sense of humor about what they’re doing and they seem to enjoying it, as hellacious as it is. That part, he got down in spades. He was having fun with his cruelty.
Q: Was it obvious at the beginning that you would shoot this film in 3-D?
A: In my first meeting at DreamWorks, they told me that they wanted to make the movie in 3-D. I thought, “All right, I’ve seen these huge tentpole movies like “Avatar” and “Alice in Wonderland” in 3-D. Wouldn’t it be kind of cool to do a horror film where you’ve got two guys walking down a corridor and you want to look around them and see what’s at the end of it?” I really got into the idea and had a great time shooting it that way.
ABOUT THE MOVIE
High school Senior Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin) finally has it all—he’s running with the popular crowd and dating the hottest girl in high school. In fact, he’s so cool he’s even dissing his best friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But trouble arrives when an intriguing stranger Jerry (Colin Farrell) moves in next door. He seems like a great guy at first, but there’s something not quite right— yet no one, including Charley’s mom (Toni Collette), seems to notice! After witnessing some very unusual activity, Charley comes to an unmistakable conclusion: Jerry is a vampire preying on his neighborhood. Unable to convince anyone that he’s telling the truth, Charley has to find a way to get rid of the monster himself in this Craig Gillespie-helmed revamp of the comedy-horror classic.
DreamWorks Pictures presents “Fright Night,” directed by Craig Gillespie and produced by Michael De Luca and Alison Rosenzweig, with a screenplay by Marti Noxon and story by Tom Holland, based on the film “Fright Night,” written by Tom Holland. The film will be released on August 19, 2011.
