The actor recalled an assistant director taking one look at him and saying, “You can’t go to the set like this.”

Colin Farrell needed 46 takes to film *Minority Report *scene after wild birthday night: ‘Tom wasn’t very happy’

The actor recalled an assistant director taking one look at him and saying, "You can't go to the set like this."

By Emlyn Travis

Emlyn Travis is a news writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2022. Her work has previously appeared on MTV News, Teen Vogue, and *NME*.

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October 29, 2025 12:08 p.m. ET

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Colin Farrell in 2022's 'Minority Report'. Credit:

David James/Twentieth Century Fox

If only one of the precogs could have warned Colin Farrell that going out for his birthday would result in one of his crappiest times shooting a movie ever.**

While visiting *The Late Show* on Tuesday, the actor revealed that he partied so hard one night that he needed 46 takes to nail one of his scenes in *Minority Report* with his costar Tom Cruise the next day. **

"I also had one of the worst days I've ever had on a film set [on *Minority Report*]," Farrell admitted to host Stephen Colbert. "It was my birthday on May 31, and we were shooting, and I begged production — who did I think I was? — of a $120 million film if they [could] not have me working on my birthday."

Tom Cruise, Neal McDonough, and Colin Farrell in 'Minority Report'.

David James/Twentieth Century Fox

He quickly learned, however, that not even a birthday can stop production. **

"So of course my pickup was 6 a.m. on May 31, and I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before," he said. "And I remember getting into bed, and as soon as I turned off the light the phone rang and it was the driver, [who] said, 'It's 10 past 6.' And I went, 'Oh, s---.'"

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Farrell explained that he arrived on set in such a state that it caught the attention of the movie's second assistant director, David H. Venghaus Jr. **

"I got out of the car and he went, 'You can't go to the set like this,'" he recalled. "And I went, 'Just get me six Pacifico Cervezas and a packet of 20 [Marlboro] Red."**

Turning to the audience, Farrell quickly cautioned, "Now, listen, it's not cool because two years later I went to rehab, right? But it worked in the moment. All the holy people that we look to on how to live a life would say the present is all that counts."

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So then Farrell "had a couple of beers" and went to set. "It was terrible," he lamented. "I will never forget the line I had that I couldn't get out. It was, 'I'm sure you've all grasped the fundamental paradox of pre-crime methodology.' That was the line that started the scene."

It got so bad, Farrell said, that the crew began to try to help him out. "I remember one of them coming up and saying, 'Do you want to go out and take a breath of fresh air?'" he said. "And I remember thinking, 'If I go out and take a breath of fresh air, then I'll be under more pressure when I come back in to be better.' And I went, 'No, we'll just go through it.'"

The plan did not work. "We did 46 takes," Farrell deadpanned. "Tom wasn't very happy with me. Tom, who I love, was not very happy!"

To prove his point, Colbert brought out a snapshot from the film that featured Cruise's character, John Anderton, holding a gun to Farrell's Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer's throat. "No, this is what he did. He pulled a gun on you," the host joked. "That's him at the end of the take right there!"

Released in 2002, and adapted from Philip K. Dick's 1956 novella of the same name, *Minority Report *starred Cruise as the head of D.C.'s pre-crime division, which arrests individuals before they can commit any offenses using premonitions received by clairvoyants, a.k.a precogs. However, John finds the tables turning on him when he is accused of a future crime, forcing him to go on the run.

Watch Farrell discuss his terrible, no good, very bad day on set above.

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Source: “AOL Movies”