Delving into this Connection Between Colin Farrell & Swinton for This Latest Drama The Ballad of a Small Player

On a sticky day in Macao, a vibrant phoenix decorated with over 60,000 blossoms hatches from a giant pink ornate egg. This haughty bird revels in the attention of onlookers as it rotates on a jewel-studded perch to the victorious notes of trumpets, then returning to its shell. Observing this display, you might think lucky to have stumbled across it at exactly the perfect moment. Stay a while, however, and you would discover this unfolding happens each 15 minutes without fail.

It is the summer of 2024, and Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton are residing at this location while shooting Ballad of a Small Player, helmed by Edward Berger and adapted from the author’s gripping 2014 novel about ghosts, guilt, and gambling. The actor portrays Brendan Reilly, an Irish thief who uses an English voice, uses the name Lord Doyle, and takes refuge at the luxury hotel, where he clings to a risky lifestyle of enervated opulence. Having fled to Macau with a stolen fortune, he passes his nights betting at baccarat, a high-stakes game of chance no more complex as a coin toss. Swinton is the gauche investigator, also labouring under multiple personas (at times she is Betty, then another), who has been hired to find the thief and retrieve the loot.

This location feels like a real mind-bender. Kind of like living inside that giant ornamental egg.

But that “headfuck” remark could also refer to Macau itself. Following 400 years as a colonial outpost, this port city to the south of the mainland transitioned into a special administrative region of China in 1999. Similar to its American counterpart, its casino center carries an intoxicating air of kitsch. Its Cotai Strip is flanked with looming copies of the Venetian bridge, the Eiffel Tower and London’s clock tower. Stationed near the imitation government buildings is a iconic double-decker in which the footballer – or rather, his digital avatar – is waving from the top level in his role as ambassador of the hotel brand establishment. “Did you go inside?” the actress inquires excitedly. “You can find beefeaters doing jazz hands!”

Behind the Glitter and Glamour: Deeper Themes in a Surreal Environment

Regardless of what that might suggest, the region, which has been rarely featured in Hollywood cinema, is a weightier proposition than Vegas. Razzle-dazzle stage spectaculars never really caught on in this place, and its patrons are too focused to get sloshed. Waitstaff carry platters of the beverage or dairy, instead of cocktails, across the casino floors. Spirits of a another kind, though, are an integral part of the culture, as Ballad of a Small Player demonstrates. In one sequence, the protagonist is denied entry after the management reviews CCTV footage of his most recent win and notices a ghost lingering behind him.

Osborne’s book likens a gaming hall to a “the storyteller enchanted castle imagined by a small child with a feverish dream”. That is reflected in today’s location: the former hotel, an deserted ex- resort adjacent to a shop selling “the drink, greenery and home goods”. The team has dressed by the set decorator the artist to amplify its faded grandeur splendor: gaudy chandeliers, mirrored pillars with floral decals, doorways parenthesised by tasselled, red curtains and indoor greenery.

Characters Living in a Realm of Deception

For his initial day on location, the writer Lawrence Osborne sports a brimless cap on the back of his skull, and moving about on crutches after a crash in Bangkok, where he has lived since 2012. The novelist positions him in a foldable seat and gazes admiringly at the abandoned casino, its gaming tables surrounded by extras whom the director is actively stirring into a frenzy ahead of the next take. There is a near-constant hiss as the smoke machine envelops the room with its misty vapor.

The fakery feels fitting for a movie where the majority of the roles are pretending as someone else. “Guys I used to meet in Macau would claim to be nobles and counts,” says the writer. “No one doubted them. Such as the baker, who marketed his egg tarts here. Was he even a title?” He was not: The city’s famous baker, who passed away in 2006, was a Boots pharmacist from Ilford in the county.

Performance Insights and Artistic Influences

The crew films a few takes of Farrell taking the escalator down to the gaming floor, then weaving through the baccarat tables as the supporting cast whoop and holler in the background. He is attired in high-waisted cream trousers, a patterned shirt and braces, and a spiffy tomato-coloured jacket. The alternating red and green lighting has a clashing, conflicting effect, as if warning him to stop while urging him to go. The colors also add a touch of sci-fi into the chintzy environment: a reminder that Wong Kar-wai filmed parts of In the Mood for Love and its futuristic semi-sequel 2046 here.

His sleek hair and thin mustache that gives Farrell a hint of roguish, vintage charm was inspired by a tradition of gentleman stars: the legend, the swashbuckler, David Niven. Have they informed his performance? “No,” the actor explains to me. “But I’m aware that everything I’ve watched or consumed or heard unavoidably finds its way in my work. People have questioned me about The Penguin and whether I was inspired by the actor in The Sopranos. To this day have not watched The Sopranos! Yet I know that each gangster I’ve encountered has made its Rolodexian way into what I did in that project. Similarly with this character, whether it’s characters with dependencies or people leading lives of total artifice.”

Farrell’s own past struggles are well documented, though betting was not among them. Some of his understandings into the character’s mindset have stemmed from chatting to casino managers here. “One shared the casino was up $24m the prior evening from a pair of high rollers. I said: ‘I assume they were quite downcast.’ He responded: ‘Yes. However if they win, they feel just as bad.’”

Tilda Swinton’s {Character|Role