Colin Farrell, Austin Butler Win Best-Actor Awards at the Golden ...

Colin Farrell and Austin Butler each earned new hardware at Tuesday’s Golden Globes 2023. Farrell won the award for best actor in a comedy or musical for his performance in The Banshees of Inisherin while Butler took the award for drama actor for Elvis. 

“I never expect films to work or to find an audience, and when they do, it’s shocking to me,” Farrell said in his acceptance speech. The charming star made sure to thank his director, Martin McDonagh, whom he first worked with on 2008’s In Bruges. “I owe you so much…you changed the trajectory of my life in ways that I will begrudgingly be grateful to you for the rest of my days,” he said. 

In Banshees, the actor stars as Pádraic Súilleabháin, an Irish man whose sweet existence is upended when his longtime best friend stops speaking to him. “He inhabits a purity that I’ve never—and I’m fine with never—but I’ve never accessed it to the same degree he does and as consistently as he does,” Farrell recently told Vanity Fair of his Banshees character.

Farrell’s fellow nominees included Babylon’s Diego Calva, Glass Onion’s Daniel Craig, White Noise’s Adam Driver, and The Menu’s Ralph Fiennes, but Farrell has been out front much of the season due to the critical acclaim of his work in Banshees. At the Venice Film Festival, Farrell won the Volpi Cup for best actor, and he’s landed several other honors and awards since the film’s world premiere, including the New York Film Critics Circle acting prize, the National Society of Film Critics award, and the National Board of Review’s best-actor honor. 

Farrell also thanked his costars. “Brendan, I love you so much. To get to cohabitate this creative space with you every day…all I did every day was aspire to be your equal,” he said to his costar Brendan Gleeson, while also thanking his other costars Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan.

His last thank-you went out to Jenny the donkey, the breakout star of the dark comedy. “She’s having an early retirement because she said, ‘Fuck the film business, you’re welcome to it. I’m one and done,’” he joked. 

Speaking of rising stars, Austin Butler has experienced a meteoric rise since last year’s summer premiere of Elvis, in which he transforms into the music icon. The 31-year-old actor, whose previous credits include The Carrie Diaries and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, captures Elvis’s journey to stardom and personal and professional struggles, while also performing many of the singer’s most popular songs. 

“I owe this to a bold, visionary filmmaker who allowed me to take risks and I always knew I would be supported,” Butler said of his director as he accepted his award. He made sure to also thank the Presley family for “opening [their] hearts” to him. 

The showy film, directed by Baz Luhrmann, earned Butler critical acclaim and put him on the path to awards season, including stops at the Palm Springs Film Festival and the upcoming Santa Barbara International Film Festival. In this category, he was up against Brendan Fraser for The Whale, Hugh Jackman for The Son, Bill Nighy for Living, and Jeremy Pope for The Inspection. 

Butler, who will next be seen in Dune 2, ended his speech by thanking his family, including his sister who was at the show. He wrapped up his speech by thanking Presley himself. “You were an icon and a rebel and I love you so much,” he said.