In an interview with UTV Live Tonight, Colin Farrell said he enjoyed being upstaged by his young co-star Alison Barry, who plays his sick daughter in modern fairytale Ondine.
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The film follows a Cork fisherman, named Syracuse, trawling off the Irish coast on the day he discovers a woman in his fishing net.
She appears to be dead but, miraculously, comes back to life before his eyes, and Syracuse falls helplessly in love.
The story unravels through the complicated relationship between Syracuse and his seriously ill daughter Annie, who believes that the woman her father caught in his net is a mermaid.
"I loved her to bits and she was incredibly smart and very witty. Good sort of little human", Farrell said of his young co-star.
"Some of the lines that she had were so intelligent that it would have been hard for a grown man or a grown woman to possess them and own them and make them their own."
"I loved being around her and working with her and loved being upstaged by her", the Irish star told UTV.
Nicknamed 'Circus' by the locals, on account of his drunken exploits, Syracuse is now sober and attends unofficial AA meetings with his parish priest.
"Syracuse was such a gorgeous man and with all his trials and tribulations that he has with his life and deals with daily , a sick daughter, dissolved marriage and a mother that just passed away recently and a good bout of alcoholism and a very wet town, he completely lacked self-pity."
"I loved that enduring aspect of him".
"One of the cool things about the job that is you get to see into other people's lives", Farrell said.
The actor says he has put his wild ways behind him.
Farrell and Polish co-star Alicja Bachleda, who plays magical Ondine, fell in love during filming and welcomed a son, Henry, last October.
The film, which effortlessly mixes myth and fantasy with the life of a fishing community on the jagged seascapes of the wild southwest, premiered in Dublin last month.
"I had this image of fisherman pulling a girl from the water, who may or may not be dead. And I just wanted to see where it wanted to go and I wanted it to be this fairytale", film director Neil Jordan told UTV.
Ondine is released across the UK on 5 March.
© UTV News