Edward Berger & Colin Farrell on Ballad of a Small Player’s Existential Gamble in Macau

When director Edward Berger chose to bring Lawrence Osborne’s beloved novel Ballad of a Small Player to the screen, he was captivated by the search for meaning in a world of illusions and imitation. The result is a cinematic journey that explores identity, loss, and love in a place where everything is smoke and mirrors.

The film’s main character, Brendan Reilly, played by Colin Farrell, the a man hiding behind a false name, Lord Doyle, seeks both escape and redemption in Macau to pay off his sizeable gambling debts. Macau a city that is a living metaphor for reinvention that was built as a copy of other iconic cities.

A Story of Originality In A Place Of Copies

Edward Berger describes Ballad of a Small Player as “the story of a man who’s lost his soul and his identity.” The main character, gambling and drifting through Macau, is “a copy of a copy,” Berger explains. There are many gambling addicts before him and many will arrive after his departure.

“He has a fake name and runs around in a city that is basically a copy of Las Vegas, which is itself a copy of Venice and Paris, and all the other wonderful cities in the world. He’s trying to find his identity. It’s a story where, in the end, love wins over greed. That never gets old.” The hungry ghosts are strategically depicted in the film, described as having long necks and big mouths devouring everything in front of them.

A standout moment in the film is a wordless scene in which Farrell’s character, Lord Doyle, devours a massive feast alone in a hotel room. depicting the hungry ghost mythology. The scene, Farrell explains, is “an expression of loss and emptiness, and this dawning horror — maybe he’s already dead, a hungry ghost. It was physically demanding; by lunch, I’d probably consumed 10,000 calories. But what made it powerful was how in sync everyone was, from the camera operator to the director. It became more than a short scene — it was the emotional centerpiece of the film.”

Edward Berger Photo by StillMoving.Net for Netflix

Berger recalls how the performance affected the crew. “Colin made it the centerpiece with his utter immersion. It was so physical and visceral that it even made us, the crew, uneasy watching it. That’s the power of his performance.”

For Colin Farrell, the script’s anxious energy was irresistible. “From my first read, it was a very anxious read for me. The film is quite angst-ridden, and I just loved it,” he states. Having already admired Berger’s work on Patrick Melrose starring fellow actor Benedict Cumberbatch, Farrell saw the project as a chance to dive into a story that was specific and universal.

Creative Partnerships: Trust and Serendipity

The collaboration between Berger and Farrell began with a chance meeting. “We had a wonderful lunch in Los Angeles, talked about the script, and tried to find a window for it at the right time,” Farrell recalls.

Scheduling conflicts delayed the project, but fate intervened when the two men ran into each other in a London sauna during awards season. “It was coincidence, but it also felt like the universe telling us to make this film,” Farrell jokes. “We were both promoting other films — Edward with ‘Conclave,’ me with ‘Banshees of Inisherin’— and we just started talking about the future. That’s when ‘Ballad’  felt real.”

Macau: A Living Metaphor

For Berger, location scouting in Macau was a revelation. “I was overwhelmed, a little bit like what you see in the film. It’s really an attack on the senses: the colors, the lights, the music, everything. It’s so rich and colorful, but there’s also a wonderful sort of old town that’s quiet, almost like a little fishing village. That contrast — the multitude of impressions — really found its way into the movie.”

Colin Farrell’s first time in Macau left a lasting impression on him. “I arrived about two weeks before we started shooting with no expectations. Most of the images I’d seen painted Macau as a gambling mecca, and while we did shoot a lot in casinos and these incredibly elaborate hotels like the Londoner and the Parisian, the most peaceful and rich cultural experience I had was in the older, more colonial parts of Macau,” he recounts. “Coloane, a fishing village with small, winding streets and weeping willow trees, was beautiful. For the eight or ten weeks we were there, I felt like I was immersed in another world.”

He notes the city’s dual nature: “The casinos are a significant part of Macau, but they didn’t even exist in 2006. They dredged the sea floor, built this land mass, and created a new gambling center. But the parts of Macau on either side of what once didn’t exist are the most stunning.”

Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) and Dao Ming (Fala Chen) Photo courtesy of Netflix

The Power of Place and Performance

The city of Macau is more than a backdrop; it’s a character in the film’s drama. “It’s a city of contrasts, and that’s what the story needed,” Berger mentions. The architecture, the lights, the crowds, and the quiet corners all serve as metaphors for a man lost in a world of surfaces, searching for something real.

Farrell’s performance, haunted and hopeful, anchors the film. “We were all searching for something in this film, just as the character was searching for himself,” Berger reflects. “It’s that search that makes the story and the filmmaking so universal.”

The Film’s Visual Language: Pop-Up Rooms and Gaudy Splendor

The team was determined to capture Macau’s unique aesthetic. Berger, along with his cinematographer, set out to make a film that was “extroverted on the surface, but with a fragile soul at the center.” They coined the phrase “pop-up room” to guide the film’s visual style.

“Our costume designer brought a weird, velvet green suit for Colin, which probably took him by surprise,” Berger jokes. It perfectly captured the shiny veneer hiding Reily’s sensitive soul.

“That suit set the tone for the wardrobe, and the look found its way into everything — from the costumes to the production design. The casino floors and hotel suites are a little bit gaudy, a bit operatic, with copies of classical marble and gold everywhere. That’s part of the movie’s identity: a copy of a copy.”

In the end, Ballad of a Small Player is a film about the quest for realness in a world of endless imitation. Perhaps, by the end, we can believe in the possibility of redemption.

[Edward Berger On Directing ‘Conclave’]

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.