#farrelleto20

Thailand fling pt. 3

Who had on their bingo card that Jared Leto would spend the last days of 2024 in Thailand. Not only in Thailand, but in Krabi. Not only Krabi but at Railay Beach, at the Rayavadee resort, the place Colin Farrell stayed at right after the shooting of Alexander had ended in 2004? Of all places he wound up there... again. Not on my card, at least.

Captioned with: Hello Thailand long time no see ❤️ 2004, 2014 and now 2024. Some things change, others never do

Remember, we had this stunning trip down memory lane in 2014, showing him watching a sunset at Railay Beach:

Captioned with: #Thinking about you

Below are impressions from his much more publicized vacay that stretched over Christmas and his 53rd birthday. Just New Year's Eve he apparently jetted off to Tokyo.

Jared shared his Thailand activities (diving, climbing, sunset watching) and grown wealth extensively on Instagram and Snapchat. He chose two songs of his own (of course) as soundtrack. Life is Beautiful on Instagram, and Great Wide Open (which has all the known symptoms of a Farrelleto song) on Snapchat.

[I'm a thief; You're a liar] But we live in our wildest dreams, Into the great wide open, Across a land of blood and dreams

he croons under the Snapchat video…

… and then treats us to a sunset view across an exclusive beautiful beach, which is at a different resort in Phuket now. 

This land “of blood and dreams” where an “I” and a “you” lived their “wildest dreams”—it really looks like Mr. Leto gave us a personal 20th anniversary of Alexander after all. Why, thank you for that! There was nothing all year—no reminiscence, no word from Colin, not even from Oliver Stone. Until these posts.

You can't look at them and not make a connection to Alexander; even without an explicit mention of the movie, it's all over the messaging. The choice of location, Jared giving his sternest Hephaistion gaze like it's 2004, or 2014, for that matter, the philosophical reflection…

And with that comes the one who shall not be named.

Funny enough, I realized something when I was making this post. Jared has edited the caption. Some time after December 21, the phrase “Some things change, others never do” was extended with an 🥸 emoji.

Come on! 😅 What is that supposed to mean? Why would someone take time to do that? 

I'm spitballing here and assume, yes, this was deliberate. The caption expresses a specific sentiment in abstract terms about passing time and “things” that aren't affected by it. The curious addition of 🥸 was made to hint at what it is that he thinks is “never” changing. It's a trivial observation that some things change and others don't, insofar as his vacation destination is concerned or anything else on this planet, but the “never” does some heavy lifting here. Maybe it's kept opaque because he wants to communicate something different altogether. It pertains to the timeframe of “2004, 2014, and now 2024”. Something hasn't changed since his first time in Thailand, and he's certain it “never” changes. “Things” can mean a lot. 

And I listen, and I think everyone with a certain sensibility here will get it too. To quote an sometimes 🥸-looking-actor circa 2004 concerning the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion in the movie:

You'll probably get the fucking vibe unless you're blind and deaf.

I don't think we are, are we, blind and deaf? The vibe is vibing.

Emma Forrest, when promoting her wonderful memoir that featured her heartbreaking ex-boyfriend Colin Farrell, once said in an interview that “Diamonds And Rust” by Joan Baez was one of his favorite songs.

That song is famously about Bob Dylan calling from nowhere and pulling Joan back into her painful and sentimental memories of him — like his eyes being “bluer than robin’s eggs”.

2021/22 was a Farrell/Leto year first and foremost due to the stellar make-up work by Mike Marino (@ prorenfx on Instagram) and his frequent collaborator Göran Lundström (@ effexstudios_goran) who created the stunning masks for Colin's Penguin and Jared's Paolo. The Batman shoot ended about the time that House of Gucci's started, so for Lundström these were back to back jobs. Because of their unrecognizable appearances in their roles, Colin and Jared were constantly mentioned together on social media for the most part of 2021/22. That was fun while it lasted.

By now, I think that it's not quite a coincidence. If you listen to Jared and Colin, you might get a feeling that they, too, talked about it — with each other…

Jared Leto about “the idea of a mask” I’ve heard about actors who didn’t have the character until they put on the shoes. In this case, I was sent the script for another part; when I read the script, I really connected with this character and I saw a lot of opportunity for heart and humor. Once I started doing the research, I [knew] this was going to be a pretty intense transformation. And I love immersive work. I love the idea of a mask. In the earliest theater, actors would wear masks. It’s not only a disguise — a mask also reveals. My job is to create a life behind the mask, and Göran’s job is to find humanity in the mask. It’s not just about how well he puts together some chemicals or chooses the right colors. It’s really about creating an individual. THR, December 7, 2021

Jared Leto about taking the chance to channel his own grandfather in House of Gucci The Dallas Buyers Club Oscar winner — who is speaking to Screen International prior to the death of that film’s director Jean-Marc Vallée — was originally considering a different part in House Of Gucci, but after reading the script fell in love with Paolo, the black sheep of the Gucci family who ends up turning on his relatives after his dreams of becoming a designer are thwarted. “I could relate to Paolo’s desire to be taken seriously as an artist, his desire to be heard, his desire to create something special and share it with the world,” says Leto. “He reminded me a lot of my grandfather, who had a kind of mischievous charm to him and was gregarious and full of life and laughter. In my life I can be quite reserved and quiet unless I’m on stage [with his band 30 Seconds To Mars], so I love that Paolo was virtually singing and dancing all the time.” Screendaily, January 2022

Jared Leto about having permission to “go completely fucking crazy” on set Leto let Scott know that he wanted to work with him years back at the 2003 Morocco Film Festival. They’d run into each other. And Scott was on the set of “Blade Runner 2049.” After asking to play Paolo instead, Leto spoke to Scott on the phone. “I basically told him I was going to go completely fucking crazy if we were going to this,” he said. “He was going to have to take the cuffs off and let the lunatic run around the asylum, in a way.” IndieWire 2021/2022

Colin Farrell talking about all the things Jared Leto talked about — the idea of masks, shadows and having the permission to let loose without judgment Look I only had as I said five or six scenes or seven scenes, and I wasn't quite I was at the early stages of looking at what I felt, I could do or bring to it, I was at a bit of a loss and then when I saw what Mike did, the whole character made sense to me, I swear to God, I saw what he did, and I just went okay, okay, and I got really excited about this all that to say that most of — if anyone ever thinks what I do in Batman is a decent performance, I'll gladly take 49% of the credit, I — honest to God, I'm not—I’m not joking you, cause there's — you know mask work? And like Jung used mask work and certain eastern philosophies have used mask work, it’s a very powerful way to allow the shadow to have permission; the shadow that exists in all of us to have permission because you're aware that you're not gonna be judged, that you feel protected from, you know, the awful rule of judgment that man inflicts upon each other. Well, that's gone and so the sense of I—you know, conventional logic would say, maybe with a full face covering you, that it would be limiting that it would, you would feel constricted… it was 100% the opposite! It was so f—damn liberating, it was so liberating, and I felt so free, and I felt like, and I may be proven wrong, I felt like it was impossible to be too big — cut to: Farrell is too big— but like I had such, Mike gave me such permission to just explore you know behaviors by the brilliance of the work that he did, Mike Marino… Happy sad confused Podcast, July 2021

It’s not only that, but Colin and Jared approached their characters, Oz and Paolo, similarly - the kind of similar I perceive as essentially the same ...

Colin said Oz is a variation of Fredo from the ‘Godfather’. Fredo served as “emotional reference”.

Jared conceived his Paolo as a mixture of his own “cheeky” grandfather - which he admits - and the real Gucci imbued with Fredo-like motivation.

It makes a lot of sense, for both!

Also on a personal level in regard to Colin’s and Jared’s struggles to be taken seriously as artists, one of the great themes of both of their careers, I figure.

This ship. Second to none.