A-list star 'doing his thing'
2004-06-10 11:22
Marenet Jordaan & Anita Meyer
Cape Town - Hollywood bad boy Colin Farrell has stayed true to his reputation during an official appearance at Cape Town's Mount Nelson Hotel.
Salma Hayek, his co-star in the film Ask the Dust, which is being filmed here, was the epitome of elegance. The stars made their first official appearance on Wednesday in the company of director Robert Towne.
Farrell entered the room with a cigarette in his mouth and was full of jokes. He laughed loudly when he heard free liquor would only be served for the first 30 minutes at the cocktail party.
"I'm not here to surprise or shock," Farrell said about his decision to play a romantic lead. "I'm only doing my thing."
Hayek read the script for the first time eight years ago. She said she developed tremendously in the meantime and her role is a celebration of her growth as a woman.
She said the beauty of the Cape landscape offered the ideal backdrop for a love story.
"I fell head over heals in love with Cape Town - the energy, the fog, the music, the people..."
For Towne the Cape environment is "like an invitation to step back into the past", to the California of 1933. He said the people were also ideal. "Everybody is slim and they did not even have plastic surgery."
Towne has apparently been trying for 32 years to produce this adaptation of John Fante's book for the big screen.