Colin Ferrell in In Bruges Courtesy of Focus Features

"I gave myself the chance. They are the movies that came after I gave myself the chance. I have been involved with movies that I really love and [I have] worked with filmmakers like Terrence Malik, [Oliver] Stone, and Joel Schumacher, whom I adore and whom I worked with twice and is the reason why all this madness started. But I just decided to take stock of what I had been doing. And I want it to [continue] without controlling it or masterminding this idea of a career or any of that shit."

Enter Martin McDonagh. Best known as the playwright of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and The Pillowman, McDonagh picked up an Academy Award for Best Live Action short for his film Six Shooter, which he wrote and directed. But due to conflicts with the film's producers, McDonagh was almost soured from ever directing a film again. He persevered, however, with the script for In Bruges, a feature film about two hit men forced to lay low in the Belgian town of Bruges after a particularly difficult job.

"We sent the script to Colin," McDonagh says, "because the character of Ray has aspects that are kind of sexy and dangerous and kind of cool, which obviously Colin has in spades. But also in meeting him and hearing his take on the character, I realized that he got the side that I am more interested in, which is the sadness and the despair and the darkness."

In Bruges was the kind of script that now piqued Farrell's interest. Unlike most films featuring hit men, the script was less focused on high-octane action and more on the rhythm and cadence of language.

"On the surface, it was a hilarious read. And the way in which these fellows communicate and the use of language of course — for which Martin is, justifiably, very well-known for and respected — was so astounding and so different, and just so unique that that was the thing that gripped me first."

Jordan Prentice, Clémance Poésy, and Colin Farrell in In Bruges Courtesy of Focus Features

Farrell plays Ray, a depressive hit man teetering on the verge of suicide, who, along with Ken (Brendan Gleeson), another hit man, is banished to Belgium's best-preserved medieval city to cool their heels by their boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) after a particularly bloody hit in London. The two must melt into the throngs of tourists while they await further instructions from Harry, but their stay in the city becomes a series of surreal experiences involving, amongst others, a dwarf American actor (played not by Peter Dinklage, as many have erroneously reported, but by Jordan Prentice), Dutch prostitutes, and easily angered sightseers. Farrell notes that while there is tragedy and that the two hit men "had come from a place of pain and a horrific incident, a transgression," he was equally enamored by the "the situations, the inherent comedy" of the script.

"That was the great [thing about the film]: to see that — as hilarious as these lads were, looking at the film objectively and how funny some of the situations were — underneath it all was an incredible amount of despair, an incredible amount of loss. And that the two of them were each other's point of redemption in a way."

Farrell also clearly enjoyed the Odd Couple element of his pairing with Gleeson, a fellow Irishman with whom he had not yet had the chance to act. Under McDonagh's direction, the two spent quality time in Belgium in rehearsal.