Unpacking the Connection Of Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton in Their New Drama Ballad of a Small Player
On a sticky morning in Macau, a blue-and-orange phoenix decorated with more than 60,000 flowers emerges from a massive pink Fabergé egg. The proud bird basks in the gaze of spectators as it rotates on a diamond-encrusted stand to the triumphant sound of trumpets, before returning to its encasement. Observing this spectacle, you might believe lucky to have chanced upon it at just the perfect moment. Stay longer, however, and you would discover that hatching happens every 15 minutes without fail.
We are in summer 2024, and Farrell together with Swinton are residing here while filming Ballad of a Small Player, directed by Edward Berger and based on Lawrence Osborne’s gripping 2014 novel about ghosts, remorse, and betting. Farrell portrays his character, an from Ireland thief who adopts an British voice, goes by the alias his title, and takes refuge at the Wynn Palace, where he maintains a precarious lifestyle of enervated luxury. Having escaped to the city with a stolen fortune, he spends his evenings wagering at baccarat, a high-risk pastime of luck as simple as a coin toss. Swinton is the gauche agent, also operating under multiple identities (one minute she is Betty, the next another), who has been hired to locate the thief and recover the money.
This location feels like a bit of a headfuck. Kind of like living inside that giant Fabergé egg.
But that “headfuck” remark could also refer to the city itself. Following 400 years as a colonial colony, this port city to the south of the mainland became a unique territory of the country in 1999. Like Las Vegas, its casino hub carries an alluring air of kitsch. The Cotai Strip is flanked with looming copies of the Venetian bridge, the Eiffel Tower and London’s clock tower. Parked near the imitation Houses of Parliament is a Routemaster bus in which the footballer – or rather, his digital self – is waving from the upper deck in his role as representative of the Londoner establishment. “Did you go in there?” the actress asks with enthusiasm. “There are guards doing jazz hands!”
Beyond the Glitter and Sparkle: Serious Elements in a Dreamlike Setting
Despite what this might imply, the region, which has been little-seen in Hollywood cinema, is a more serious proposition than Vegas. Flashy live shows never really took off in this place, and its patrons are too stern to get sloshed. Waitstaff carry trays of the beverage or dairy, rather than mixed drinks, across the casino floors. Spirits of a another sort, though, are an essential part of the culture, as Ballad of a Small Player demonstrates. In a particular sequence, Reilly is denied entry after the management checks security video of his most recent win and notices a ghost loitering behind him.
The novel compares a gaming hall to a “the storyteller enchanted castle conceived by a youngster with a high fever”. This is reflected in the film’s set: the former hotel, an abandoned former hotel and casino next to a shop offering “the drink, greenery and lifestyle”. It has been dressed by the set decorator Jonathan Houlding to amplify its shabby-chic splendor: gaudy chandeliers, mirrored columns with flower patterns, archways parenthesised by fringed, red curtains and indoor greenery.
Characters Living in a World of Deception
On his initial day on location, the writer Lawrence Osborne sports a hat on the back of his head, and pincering about on supports after a crash in the city, where he has resided since 2012. The novelist positions himself in a canvas chair and gazes admiringly at the abandoned casino, its card tables filled by extras whom Berger is busy stirring into a uproar before the next take. You hear a continuous hiss as the smoke machine fills the room with its misty breath.
This artificiality seems fitting for a film where the majority of the roles are pretending as someone else. “Guys I encountered in the city would claim to be barons and aristocrats,” says Osborne. “Nobody questioned it. Like the baker, who sold his pastries here. Did he actually hold a title?” In fact, he wasn’t: Macau’s famous baker, who passed away in 2006, was a pharmacy chemist from the town in the county.
Acting Insights and Artistic Influences
We watch a several shots of Farrell riding the moving staircase down to the gaming floor, then moving in and out the baccarat tables as the extras whoop and holler in the background. Farrell is dressed in high-waisted beige pants, a patterned shirt and braces, and a spiffy red jacket. The shifting red and green lighting has a clashing, conflicting impact, as if cautioning him to halt while urging him to proceed. This palette also add a touch of sci-fi into the ornate environment: a nod that Wong Kar-wai filmed parts of In the Mood for Love and its futuristic semi-sequel 2046 in Macau.
The Brylcreemed hair and pencil moustache that gives the actor a hint of raffish, retro appeal was modeled by a tradition of classic actors: Clark Gable, the swashbuckler, the charmer. Have they informed his performance? “No,” the star explains to me. “But I realize that everything I’ve watched or read 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 every mobster I’ve ever seen has made its Rolodexian path into what I did in The Penguin. Similarly with Reilly, be it individuals with addictions or people leading existences of abject artifice.”
Farrell’s own former struggles are publicly known, though betting was not one of them. A few of his insights into Reilly’s mindset have stemmed from conversing to hotel executives here. “One shared the casino was ahead $24m the previous evening from two gentlemen. I replied: ‘I imagine they were pretty downcast.’ He responded: ‘Yeah. However if they win, they experience equally terrible.’”