With his lyrical Irish accent and rhapsodic view of his artful sci-fi film “After Yang,” opening Friday, Colin Farrell talks of a soul-transporting event.
“After Yang” looks at a nuclear family – parents, two kids – who have Yang, an android to tutor their adopted Chinese daughter. When Yang malfunctions, repairs are sought, the family mourns,
“It was so gentle,” Farrell, 45, marveled of the script and direction by South Korea-born American filmmaker Kogonada, known for his essays on major filmmakers. Kogonada is a pseudonym.
“The questions I felt that ‘Yang’ asked,” the actor continued, “were so profound. Issues about the male ego, the identity we assume as parents, as lovers, as fathers, as husbands, as providers, whatever it may be. And also, grief and loss.
“All these things, along with the power and the importance of memory, were touched on in so many ways. But none of them are declarations of what is the right or the wrong way.
“I found that he captured so many — and asked so many — wonderful questions and captured so many wonderful moments in relation to the human issue.”
“Yang” presents a marriage where, without comment, gender norms are reversed. Farrell’s Jake has a tea shop — “If three people come in, that’s a busy day” — but is basically the at-home husband making meals, getting the kids to school. His wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith) is an on-the-go executive.
“Certainly my character feels the weight that we men can feel, which is the emasculation that’s resulting from the success his wife is having in her career,” Farrell said.
“So Jake is at a stage in his life where he does feel like he’s in the wilderness. He’s drowning in a sense of failure that has quietly begun to consume him and promotes the greater isolation that he feels from his life at home.”
Friday also brings Farrell, unrecognizable, as The Penguin in “The Batman.”
“Yes, I’m totally buried in that one. As I’ve said, if I get bad reviews, I can just blame the makeup artist.
“But I’d never explored that depth of masking. It was amazing. I was just the canvas. Mike Marino (the prosthetic makeup designer) and his team worked on me for two or three hours in the morning and then sent me off.
“An extraordinary experience and so much fun. It was the complete antithesis I felt creatively to ‘After Yang,’ where there was nowhere to hide, and I was well buried in the Penguin.”
