The One Line In Minority Report That Colin Farrell Just Couldn't Get Right

Steven Spielberg's 2002 sci-fi film "Minority Report" takes place in the year 2054, when the Washington D.C. police department will be revolutionized by the birth of three people blessed with precognitive abilities. The pre-cogs are kept in a sort of semi-stasis in a tank of saline, while elaborate machines read their thoughts and broadcast them into interactive TV projections. The pre-cogs can predict when murders are going to occur, and even the names of the killers and victims. It's up to the Department of Pre-Crime to interpret the TV projections, find the location of the murder, and stop it before it happens. 

The film's protagonist, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) trusts the projections implicitly, but a visiting agent from the Department of Justice, Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) doesn't trust it. Predicting the future is a little too woo-woo for Witwer, and he is investigating Pre-Crime to look for flaws in the system. He serves as an antagonist in "Minority Report." Witwer will be the closest on Anderton's tail when Anderton is accused of a pre-murder. 

Spielberg famously consulted with authors and futurists when designing "Minority Report," trying to figure out what technology would look like in 50 years. The self-driving cars of "Minority Report" are slowly becoming a reality, and the manipulation of computer images by waving one's hands through the air is practically in our living rooms. The technobabble is, at least when compared to many other sci-fi movies, weirdly accurate. 

The same technobabble, however, was something of a mouthful for Farrell. The Irish actor, playing an American, recalled a very peculiar line of dialogue that he needed to repeat multiple times to pronounce correctly. Farrell talked about the line in a 2002 interview with IGN. 

It seems that Farrell, for only one line, required 36 takes. One can imagine Spielberg was very patient with his actor, and Farrell doesn't seem too proud that he kept stumbling over the line. Farrell recalled: 

"[The line was] 'I'm sure you all understand the fundamental paradox of Pre-Crime methodology.' I just couldn't. And it was the morning after my birthday. And I got worse as we went along."

The "morning after my birthday" comment may be an allusion to Farrell's admitted substance addictions at the time. Farrell has been very frank about his addictions, his stint in rehab, and his continued sobriety, so he may have been admitting that he overindulged on his birthday. He doesn't comment in the IGN interview if he was hungover, but that's the implication. Whatever the circumstances, though, Farrell was devoted to the scene and continued to do it until he got it right. 

Spielberg seemingly bore no ill will toward his actor, and Farrell even once admitted that he and the director shared a sardine sandwich, a sign of professional closeness indeed. Farrell noted that he and Spielberg shared a sandwich prior to his landing the role of Witwer, and he figured that even if he didn't get the part, he got to have lunch with one of Hollywood's preeminent hitmakers. As far as he was concerned, it was a win-win scenario.

"Minority Report" was called the best film of the year by Roger Ebert, although it wasn't highly decorated by the Academy, earning only one Oscar nomination. It inspired a short-lived TV series in 2015 and was more closely tied to the Pre-Cogs than to John Anderton. The movie is better remembered.