JUST ONE OF THE LADS SURE, COLIN FARRELL ENJOYS A NIGHT OUT - HE'S MADE 11 MOVIES IN 3 YEARS, FOR @#&*!!'S SAKE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

It's barely Sunday afternoon and Colin Farrell is, as usual, talking a blue streak with a bottle of Corona in one hand and a chain of Camel Lights burning away in the other. He puts the cigs out in a used glass that has a few drops of amber liquid at the bottom. We just presume it's not ginger ale.

OK, the basic story on Hollywood's Irish rogue of the moment indulges many of the usual archetypes: drinks like a fish, dates like a rabbit, cusses like ... well, we'll just say that Farrell's quotes in this article have been seriously edited for a family publication.

But the 27-year-old actor defies cliches more than he plays into them. His work ethic is fierce (the lad's made 11 movies in three years), his lucidity never falters, belligerence seems to be an alien concept, and he likes to take his mother to tea.

Then again, he does enjoy the Irish national sport of putting people on.

``Naaaaw ... couldn't be further from the truth,'' he says, barely suppressing the giggles, when asked about his carousing playboy reputation. ``Couldn't be further.''

Guess we'll have to ask someone else.

``The truth that should be said about Colin is he's actually not crazy or out there,'' says Ben Affleck, who co-starred with Farrell in the recent comic book movie ``Daredevil.'' ``He's just really friendly and sweet. He has nothing but love, he's really open to everything. For all these rumors of carousing and going crazy, he shows up at work every day. He works really hard. Never anything but a prince. I got to really love Colin Farrell.''

To know him is to, apparently. Director Joel Schumacher gave the European TV actor his big Hollywood break when he cast Farrell in the lead role of the little seen but highly praised Vietnam-era drama ``Tigerland.'' When Jim Carrey got cold feet on the subsequent Schumacher project ``Phone Booth,'' which opens Friday after several postponements, the director knew whom he could count on for the demanding job.

``Colin is the consummate professional,'' Schumacher says. ``He's never late, he always knows his lines. He never missed one line on 'Phone Booth.' You're trapped in one place and have to do about a dozen pages a day of dialogue with a Bronx accent when you have a very thick Dublin accent. Colin was on camera all the time and he was just magnificent.

``I don't worry about Colin the way I've worried about some of the young people I've worked with,'' adds the director, who is credited with advancing the careers of Julia Roberts, ``Booth'' co-star Kiefer Sutherland and trouble-prone Brad Renfro, among others. ``He's got a great heart and soul and a great family. I think Colin'll sow his wild oats, then he'll mature.''

Baby makes ... um, we'll get back to you

That may be happening. Or maybe not. There have been numerous, partners-unnamed admissions of wild sexcapades, along with denied tabloid rumors of liaisons with Demi Moore or Kate Beckinsale or whoever might be hot, famous and unattached at the moment. Asked whether Britney Spears is still the last American virgin, her ``Recruit'' premiere date testifies, ``I'm sure she still is, but I don't know. We're just friends. A man can't have enough friends in the world like this.''

Nicely put. But now that model Kim Bordenave is carrying his baby, to Farrell's enthusiastically proclaimed delight, is settling down on the horizon?

``We'll see once the baby comes,'' he says in utterly sober tones. ``I'll just have to make sure that I'm there as much as I can be and that I still enjoy life. There's no point in me not enjoying the life I have, because it would not be good for the child if I'm not as happy as I can be. But I have to make sure that I'm there. I want to be there and I want to be a father, I'm so excited about it.''

Farrell - who besides the recently released ``Recruit'' and ``Daredevil'' also has the films ``S.W.A.T.,'' ``Intermission'' and ``Veronica Guerin'' coming up, with the drama ``A Home at the End of the World'' and an Alexander the Great biopic epic planned for production - is also excited about ``Phone Booth's'' belated arrival.

``In my short life, it seems like a long time ago,'' when he made the film, Farrell explains. ``But I have fond memories of it and we'll see what happens; it's in the lap of the gods now.''

Filmed in less than two weeks in December 2000, ``Booth'' was originally scheduled for release the following fall. But after Sept. 11, the story of a publicist pinned down in a New York phone booth by an unseen sniper seemed less than entertaining. Plus, the following summer, the still yet-to-have-a-hit Farrell would appear opposite Tom Cruise in Steven Spielberg's ``Minority Report,'' which could not help but raise his profile.

So ``Phone Booth'' was rescheduled to late autumn of last year. And then a real sniper started picking off people in and around Washington, D.C.

Farrell had no problem with another postponement for obvious reasons of sensitivity. But the irony is not lost that ``Phone Booth'' has once again been scheduled at a time of major crisis.

``It's a peculiar piece of entertainment,'' he notes. ``It's not really reflective of anything that's happened. Maybe it'll be seen as a bit more relevant now because of what happened last year. But it should be just a good form of escapism for an hour and a half.''

They're watching you, mate

It will also be a big test of Farrell's star power. He essentially played supporting parts in the only blockbusters to his name, and the Al Pacino co-starring ``The Recruit,'' while not the flop ``Hart's War'' was, did middling business.

``It's weird to be so aware that you've been given three years of opportunities and inordinate amounts of money - which I've never understood, but I've taken gladly, of course - to do these films. But you want the people who pay you to be able to get their money back.''

So far, though, they keep paying. The son of a professional soccer player, Farrell has managed to overcome several self-imposed limits to remain on, if not quite Hollywood's A list, the industry's B-plus roster since the turn of the century.

Maybe all the unguarded interviews, and subsequent media attention, have helped more than hurt.

``I stand by pretty much everything I say,'' he notes with a shrug, and that includes a recent Playboy interview, which caused a disapproving London Times to sniff due to 137 mentions of a favorite four-letter word. ``But it's so funny when you're asked, 'What about heroin?' and you say, 'In moderation,' that is so clearly sarcasm, but it doesn't seem that way in print.''

He also refuses to move out of Dublin, going on the evident logic that he couldn't be working more if he lived in California.

``Not in a million years, man. This sun depresses me, there's too much of it. I need rain.''

Because the world apparently needs to know, we asked what a typical night in the Fair City was like for him.

``An average evening out, me and me brother and me mother would go for tea at about 6 or 7 o'clock, either at a pub-restaurant, or me mum likes to go The Four Seasons, fine old Dublin institution that it is. She'll have a glass of wine or two, I'll have a few pints, and we'll have a decent meal.

``Then she'll head off and do her thing and I'll head back to me brother's house and sit around, watch 'The Simpsons' if they're on. Then we'll call up the lads and see what they're doing. They'll be at The Halfway House in Castleknock, where I was brought up, or some place down on Baggot Street. I'll go down and have a few pints with them. Then I'll either get a curry or a fish and chips and come home, fall asleep on me couch to a DVD or a movie, or go out to a club till 3 or 4 in the morning.

``That's an average time, having a laugh with people that I love and havin' a great time. That's it. It's that simple and it's that f---ing beautiful, man. It's a great time, a great time. And so repetitive!''

And when he gets the itch for some variety, there's always that Wild Man of the Movies role to play.

``I have a lot of energy,'' Farrell says, rhapsodically. ``I'm young, I love my job, I'm feeling my way as I go, and I'm trying to do different things. That's all I know, y'know?''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Smooth operator

`Phone Booth's' Colin Farrell isn't hung up on his bad-boy reputation

(2) no caption (Colin Farrell)

(3) Colin Farrell on impending fatherhood

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

(4) Colin Farrell attended the Oscars on March 23 with his sister, Claudine, right, and his girlfriend, model Kim Bordenave, who is pregnant with his child.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer