Colin Farrell is best known for being a superstar in the acting world with an Oscar nomination under his belt, but the Dublin native's career could have been very different.
The 46-year-old Castleknock native has received a Best Actor nod for the Oscars for his role in Martin McDonagh's hit drama The Banshees of Inisherin. But there was a time when Colin briefly considered a career as a singer, and he actually came very close to joining Boyzone when the band was just being formed.
In an interview on RTE's The Late Late Show in 2019, Colin shocked viewers with the bombshell revelation that he was a former line dancer during his early years, and that he was scouted by Louis Walsh in the Pod nightclub in Dublin.
Colin told host Ryan Tubridy: "I was giving it socks on the dance floor and I went into the bar next door afterwards and I was told this fella wants to talk to you and it was Louis Walsh.
"He said, ‘I’m getting this band together and it’s gonna be great, and you’d be wonderful.’ I was wearing a tight rubber t-shirt and leather pants, so I was ready to come on and impress Gay Byrne." Colin said that Louis Walsh told him to come down to open auditions for the band, but added that auditions weren't really open and were more a formality so the press could get some photos.
Colin ultimately agreed, and he got his photo taken with some of the Boyzone lads like Shane Lynch and Mark Walton, who was one of the original members. However, when asked to sing a song himself for the audition, Colin chose George Michael's 'Careless Whisper'.
Colin laughed: "I murdered it! It was so bad that they asked me, 'Could you do that a sec... could you do that again?' And I sang it a second time and I didn't feel great about myself afterwards and I went home afterwards... and the phone rang and my mother said Louis Walsh was on the phone for me.
"It was at the bottom of the stairs so I took the phone and he went, 'Look, eh Colin listen, today eh you know, it's not really... it's not going to work, you know," added Colin. And that was the end of Colin's boyband dream, but he would go on to become an acting legend with his role in Martin McDonagh's In Bruges in 2009 alongside co-star Brendan Gleeson.
Critics hailed the movie as one of Colin's best to date, and he got his first ever Golden Globe for the role also that year, firmly cementing his status as an A-lister. Colin also brought the dramatic real-life Thai boys' soccer team cave rescue to the big screen, along with a role as the Penguin in The Batman (2022).
The Dublin actor's biggest role to date was in Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, and later this month he is up for the best actor award at the Oscars on March 13.
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