Colin Farrell Names the 'Most Dangerous' Scene of His Career in Alexander
Farrell recounts the four-week desert shoot in Morocco and the Hydaspes battle that pushed him to the limit, as he reflects on the film's reception.
Colin Farrell has named the Battle of Hydaspes in Oliver Stone’s 2004 epic Alexander as the most dangerous scene he’s ever been part of, speaking during a joint interview with Margot Robbie for Collider’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey. Farrell noted that the Battle of Gaugamela was the hardest sequence of his career, while Hydaspes presented the greatest physical risk.
He described the scale, saying that eight elephants, 200 horses and 800 background figures, 800 foregrounds, and 800 Thai performers would move as one when action cues were given. He recalled that one rider broke a leg during the shoot, but that no one died. The Hydaspes sequence was filmed in the Moroccan desert over four weeks, a grueling stretch that tested Farrell and the rest of the cast.
The 2004 film starred Farrell as Alexander the Great and featured Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, Jared Leto, Rosario Dawson, and Anthony Hopkins. Alexander’s road to release stretched for more than a decade and a half, and the production ultimately grossed roughly $167 million worldwide against a reported budget of about $155 million. The project’s reception has long colored assessments of its ambition; in later interviews, Farrell acknowledged the period’s harsh press, describing how negative coverage complicated his own sense of purpose as an actor.
In a 2023 conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, Farrell said the film’s reception prompted him to reexamine his approach to acting and to lean back into the fundamentals he first discovered in acting classes at age 17. He described the experience as painful but instructive, a moment that helped him reconnect with the simplicity at the core of his craft.
He has since framed that turn as part of a broader arc in which ambition and risk in Hollywood are balanced against personal resilience. The Collider interview with Robbie and Farrell is part of a wider look at the making of Alexander and the long shadow the film casts over discussions of epic-scale cinema.
The discussion surrounding Alexander continues to frame Farrell’s career as one marked by audacious choices and openness in reflecting on past projects.