Colin Farrell Reveals the Alexander Battle Scene Was So Insane, It’s a Miracle No One Died

Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are out promoting their new movie, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and one of those press stops spun into a wild behind-the-scenes war story from Farrell about Oliver Stone's Alexander. It starts cute, gets gnarly, and ends with: nobody died, somehow.

Quick read on the new movie

The film pairs Farrell and Robbie for what is essentially a life-affirming odyssey. Our Editor-in-Chief, Chris Bumbray, wasn't as moved as he hoped, and put it this way:

"My hunch is that A Big Bold Beautiful Journey falters because Kogonada, a superb filmmaker, works best when directing his own scripts. He has a very particular aesthetic, and here it doesn’t mesh with Seth Reiss’s screenplay, which probably needed a lighter, more playful touch. The movie lacks momentum or energy, though it is gorgeous to look at thanks to Benjamin Loeb’s sumptuous cinematography."

The Collider chat that turned into a survival story

According to People, Farrell and Robbie sat down for a conversation at Collider and ended up reflecting on tough stretches in their careers. Farrell went right to Alexander (2004), recalling a battle sequence shot in the Moroccan desert. Specifically: weeks recreating the Battle of Gaugamela. Four weeks of it, day after day.

Robbie cut in to ask if this was the part with the elephants, which made Farrell pivot: actually, yeah, that was the most dangerous thing they did.

Alexander vs. the elements (and the elephants)

Farrell painted the picture of the set on 'action' like this — and yes, this is one of those inside-baseball moments where the numbers sound a little bonkers because they are:

• Eight elephants charging in formation
• About 200 horses
• He rattled off "800 background, 800 foreground, 800 x, 800 Thai men" — the gist being hundreds upon hundreds of extras moving at once

Amid all that chaos, one rider broke his leg on horseback. That was the worst of it. No fatalities. Farrell's takeaway was blunt:

"Nobody died. It was a miracle. They wouldn't do it now."

Given the scale and the lack of modern safety and CG shortcuts at that level back in 2004, it's hard to argue with him.

Farrell on Oliver Stone, then and now

Back when Alexander came out, Farrell was already giving Oliver Stone his flowers, calling him an amazing director and describing him as someone who suffers from, in Farrell's words, "pure honesty and complete integrity." For a film that chaotic to pull off sequences like that without disaster, you needed a field general. Stone was exactly that.

So yes, Farrell and Robbie are out selling a tender road movie. And yes, the conversation somehow ended with an elephant stampede in Morocco. Press tours: never dull.