For many years, Christmas Day for Colin Farrell meant a trip to hospital. Not for health reasons – the actor would visit to give out toys to sick young patients. “There’s a children’s hospital in Crumlin, Dublin, that used to be called Our Lady’s,” Farrell tells me, when we meet at an event organised by the Los Angeles philanthropic body the Golden Globes Foundation. “I’d go every Christmas when I used to spend my Christmas in Ireland. My sister Claudine would call up Banba, the toy shop in Dublin, we’d fill up two big vans full of toys and go out to Crumlin with them. We’d go out about 12 o’clock and we’d stay there till three or four in the afternoon, going through the different wards and handing out toys.