Colin Farrell says shooting his new Netflix drama in the middle of Macau's casino strip felt like stepping into a fever dream.
The Dubliner leads Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player as a velvet-suited conman and gambling addict pursued by Tilda Swinton’s investigator, with key scenes filmed on live gaming floors among real high rollers.
"It was all hands on deck. It was a bananas shoot," Farrell told the AFP news agency at the film's Toronto premiere. He described spending eight weeks living in hotels "in the middle of the gambling strip, which I cannot imagine I would ever do otherwise."
The production filmed for 33 days inside several Macau casinos. Set during the Hungry Ghost Festival, the story layers a supernatural charge over baccarat tables and neon skylines, with additional sequences shot in nearby Hong Kong. Berger nods to the colour and rhythm of Hong Kong cinema, citing influences from Wong Kar-wai, Johnnie To and Hou Hsiao-hsien.
Macau, where gambling has been legal since 1844, is the world’s biggest casino hub by gross gaming revenue, generating around four times Las Vegas’s takings. Berger said the aim was to capture that over-the-top energy on screen, adding that Western films have rarely shown Macau in this way.
Farrell and the cast learned baccarat for the shoot, but he kept his own stakes low. Asked if he was tempted to place the kind of bets his character makes, he laughed: "No, not for me, man. One affliction I never got, gambling. Not for me."
Ballad of a Small Player adapts Lawrence Osborne’s novel. Berger took on the project after All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, calling it another chance to pivot in tone, genre and location.
Source: AFP
