Colin Farrell brought Edward Berger’s Macau gambling drama Ballad of a Small Player to the BFI London Film Festival for its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall.
Colin Farrell, the star of The Penguin, brought Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player to the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank on Thursday 9 October 2025. Tilda Swinton and Fala Chen joined him for the UK premiere.
Farrell was born in Castleknock, Dublin, in 1976. He left the Gaiety School of Acting when the BBC cast him in Ballykissangel, and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report made him a leading man in 2002.
Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges won him a Golden Globe, and The Banshees of Inisherin won him the Volpi Cup at Venice.
Rowan Joffé adapted the film from Lawrence Osborne’s 2014 novel. Farrell plays a disgraced Irish financier calling himself Lord Doyle, lying low among the casinos of Macau, drawn to a woman at the baccarat table.
Berger, the director of All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave, made the film for Netflix. It opened at Telluride in August, came to the BFI London Film Festival as a gala, reached British cinemas on 17 October and Netflix on 29 October.
Swinton acted opposite Farrell in his first credited film, The War Zone. Deanie Ip and Alex Jennings are also in the cast.