What has surprised you most about The Batman's Penguin actor Colin Farrell?

The late Elizabeth Taylor was infamous for her many husbands, boyfriends, and even some much younger lovers. Enter Colin Farrell.

Farrell, an Irishman, became a huge star very quickly in 2000 when he made his American debut in Tigerland. He was Hollywood’s It Boy for years. While he nabbed many roles in the early 2000s, Farrell has often told the story that many of those early years are a blur. He doesn’t remember them well because of substance abuse.

After getting sober in 2005, he was starting to get his life and career back together. In 2009, he was at Cedars-Sinai Hospital for the birth of his second son.

While there, he heard that the legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor was nearby in the hospital, having a stent placed in her heart. He told her manager to send his regards.

A few days later, Farrell was home with his newborn son. He was thinking of Taylor and called his publicist, wondering if she could send Taylor some “Get Well” flowers. Oddly enough, his publicist mentioned that she was looking at some flowers and a card sent to him from Taylor.

This later led him to be invited to her house.

After arriving, he was invited in. Taylor was late. Very late.

He told reporters at a Los Angeles benefit honoring Taylor's legacy:

“I had less anxiety waiting for the results of a home pregnancy test. And that’s the truth, that’s not just a cheap joke. That’s the truth.”

“[Her manager] was there, he opened the door, he said, ‘Come on in. She should be down in a minute.’ And seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned back to seconds. I was very, very nervous, and I waited for an hour, but Dame Elizabeth only she could be socially late at her own house. An hour passed and she came out, and we sat and we spoke and I laughed and I had the most bewitching hour of my life, and I left on a cloud.”

This led to a two-year relationship that Farrell cheekily says was romantic without the consummation of the relationship. They were both somewhat insomniacs of sorts. He would call her at two in the morning and ask her nurse if she was up. Then they would talk on the phone at length.

They became very, very close friends until her death in 2011. At Taylor's funeral in 2011, Farrell read Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo.

The actors were 75 and 34 when they met.

There’s a story that Farrell has told where, when he was 28, he tried to talk 69-year-old actress Eileen Atkins into bed. They had met on a film. She turned him down. Atkins later said, "It helped me step quite lightly into my seventies."

Farrell often refers to Taylor as the last romantic relationship he had — that wasn’t consummated. He’s particular about saying that. LOL.

It’s a surprising, and sweet, story.

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