Colin Farrell

By Jess Cagle

OCCUPATION: Actor

GOAL: To parlay his starmaking turn in Tigerland into a major movie career

QUOTE: "People ask, 'What do you think about being a big star?' I haven't any idea. Ask me in a month's time."

Hype and glory don't usually go hand in hand. At the Toronto Film Festival last month, the gritty, low-budget Vietnam-era drama Tigerland (which opens in theaters this week) arrived nearly unnoticed. By the end it had emerged as the festival's biggest surprise, and its heretofore unknown star, Colin Farrell, 24, had critics using words like "James Dean" to describe his performance as Bozz, a rebellious Texan recruit who helps his boot-camp buddies in Fort Polk, La., avoid Vietnam combat. A native of Dublin, Ireland, who dropped out of high school to study acting, Farrell had no trouble trading his Irish accent for Bozz's Texas drawl, but he's finding it hard to keep his briny tongue in check now that the press is paying attention. "The first word I said in the [Toronto] press conference was 'f___,'" recalls Farrell. He can also be found on the cover of Interview magazine in a photograph that he finds "hilarious; there I am holding an American football, and I can't even throw the f___in' thing." He'll put on another Texas accent to play Jesse James in his next film, American Outlaws, due out in 2001. And while he's reading movie scripts, he's dreaming of doing theater in New York City. No problem: Farrell already speaks the language of the Big Apple.

--By Jess Cagle