‘10,000 calories by lunch’: Dissecting the ‘grotesque’ gorging scene from ‘Ballad of a Small Player’ with Colin Farrell, Fala Chen, Edward Berger
Marcus James Dixon
Colin Farrell's "grotesque" gorging scene in Ballad of a Small Player is one that's causing visceral reactions among audiences. "That's good!" director Edward Berger proudly tells Gold Derby during an interview alongside stars Farrell (as Lord Doyle) and Fala Chen (as Dao Ming).
In the scene in question, Farrell's character has reached rock bottom, and he's shoveling copious amounts of food into his mouth in order to finally feel something. Farrell now admits the gorging scene was a fun day at work.
"The chef from the Wynn Hotel had all the lobster tails, and the salmon, and the beautiful bread rolls, and fake champagne, and gâteau cake, freshly baked," he recalls. "It was a gorgeous spread. It was, I don't know, thousands of dollars worth of food that day. I had to apologize to her for the mess I was about to make of her artistry."
Says Farrell, "I was probably about 10,000 calories in by lunch, so I didn't have room service that night. They did have a spit bucket, but the camera was rolling for so long that most of it went in.
"It was a really powerful symbol for me of where this man had arrived at, and his suspicions that he was already living in hell, and that he was one of those hungry ghosts." Lord Doyle is an addict with a mysterious past who's currently hiding out in Macau, playing baccarat with strangers.
Chen felt bad for her screen partner, who was fully invested in the moment. "When I read the script, I really was worried. I'm like, 'They better give him spit buckets!'" She also felt "so sad for Doyle" when she watched the scene play out on screen. "In their encounter, she talks about this empty [feeling] — no matter how much you eat or drink, you will never be fulfilled. You can clearly see him trying to make himself feel something, to feel full, even for just a brief moment.
"He just keeps going at it. It's deeply, deeply sad, and a little grotesque as well."
Joining Ballad of a Small Player was "really a no-brainer" for Chen, because it gave her a chance to work with Farrell and Berger. "I love Edward's work, and the story itself takes place in Macau and Hong Kong, which I have this connection to and a familiarity with. It was such an easy yes."
For his part, Farrell wanted to work with the man who directed one of his favorite TV limited series, Showtime's Patrick Melrose. "I thought it was extraordinary," he declares about Berger's 2018 program starring Benedict Cumberbatch. "So, when I read Ballad three years ago, I knew that it was the same director that had done Patrick Melrose, and I just loved it. It was like nothing I had read before. Chaotic from start to finish, with beautiful flourishes. It seemed to be an interesting task, to bring this fellow to life with all the many contradictions within him."
Berger had wanted to make the film "for about eight years," he confesses. "It took us a while to find the right writer [Rowan Joffé] to nail the script." And now just happens to be the "right time" to tell this story, because "there is a gluttony of things — social media, luxury, bright billboards — and we all are tempted by all of that," he explains.
"Colin is tempted by the buffet that's in front of him in the movie," the director tells us. "He wants to eat the lobster, the chicken, the beef, and down the champagne all at the same time. But he feels none of it is gonna satiate him. He knows after that he's gonna have to find his happiness elsewhere. And that's what the crux of the movie is for me."
Berger was impressed by the commitment of his Irish leading man, a former Oscar nominee for 2022's The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). "Everything Colin does is truthful. So, you really think he eats it, and he does eat it. You really think he's putting himself through it. And you really live through it with him," the filmmaker says. "Because he shares so much, he's such a giving actor, he takes us by the hand and makes us live through everything with him."
The director shares a fun anecdote in which Farrell was listening to a Bach organ piece to get himself "in the mood" for the gorging scene, and he ended up putting it in the movie. "That just goes to show how much he knew what type of film it was," Berger notes, "and how much his voice is also in the film."
Chen was perfect for this film because she has a "quiet confidence, a calmness" about her, Berger notes. "She's a mystery, as well as incredibly intriguing." In an early scene, Dao Ming calls Lord Doyle a "lost soul" and Chen plays that wholly "in her eyes — she knows she only needs her eyes to express all of that," the director raves.
Ballad of a Small Player is based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Lawrence Osborne. It made its debut at the Telluride Film Festival in August, and was released in select theaters on Oct. 15. The movie is now streaming on Netflix.
