Colin Farrell Jokes He Had a 'Parental Dropping of the Ball' by Letting Son, 8, Watch It
Colin Farrell has learned his lesson about introducing scary movies to his kids at a young age.
The Irish actor, 43, paid a visit to Ellen DeGeneres for Wednesday’s episode of her daytime talk show, where he talked about his role as Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin in the upcoming Batman movie reboot and revealed that he allowed his now-10-year-old son Henry Tadeusz to watch 2017’s It.
“What is wrong with you?” the host ribbed her guest. “How old was he?”
“That was a parental dropping of the ball of epic proportions,” Farrell admitted. “We watched it at home and we watched half of it and, uh … I could discern a certain discomfort that was emanating from his 8-year-old body.”
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“And then we watched the second half the next day and then he was fine. We watched it before bed one night,” the actor continued, adding after the audience’s groans, “I know, I mean, I really dropped the ball.”
Despite turns in family-friendly silver-screen stories like last year’s live-action Dumbo, Farrell has starred in many a film meant for adult audiences, joking to DeGeneres, 61, that he keeps those types of movies “locked where [my sons] can’t reach.”
But in reality, Henry and his big brother James Padraig, 16, couldn’t care less. “I wish I had a choice. They don’t want to!” Farrell said of his sons’ lack of interest in his roles.
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As for his new role as the deadly umbrella-toting foil to Robert Pattinson‘s Bruce Wayne/Batman (which Farrell begins shooting in a couple of weeks), surprisingly, his children still aren’t super impressed.
“They’re sick of me being a bad guy,” he lamented, quipping of their real-life opinion of their dad, “Which apparently, reading between the lines, leads me to believe that they think I’m okay.”
The Batman is scheduled for release on June 25, 2021.
