Farrell says he was so drunk on set he needed 46 takes for a single line

Colin Farrell has said that he once showed up so drunk to a film set he needed almost 50 takes to convincingly get through a line of dialogue, angering his costar Tom Cruise.

- Catherine Shoard

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on his late-night chatshow, Farrell recalled "one of the worst days" he'd ever experienced on set, both hungover and freshly intoxicated on Steven Spielberg's 2002 sci-fi drama Minority Report.

In the film, based on Philip K Dick's 1956 novella of the same name, Farrell plays a Department of Justice agent who audits a programme using psychic technology to predict murders, while Cruise is a "Precrime" chief accused of a murder he hasn't yet committed.

Farrell had requested not to work on his birthday, 31 May, but instead was issued with a 6am pickup time.

"I got up to all sorts of nonsense the night before," Farrell told Colbert. "I remember getting into bed, and as soon as I turned off the light, the phone rang and it was the driver outside saying, 'It's 10 past six', and I went, 'Oh, shit'."