‘Total Recall’ premiere: Colin Farrell embraces the moment

In “Total Recall,” Colin Farrell plays a man who chooses to forget his true identity. Given the chance, however, that’s not something the actor says he’d ever opt to do himself.

“I have had plenty of my memory erased throughout the years anyway,” he said with a smile at the film’s premiere Wednesday evening, alluding to his past struggles with substance abuse.

Indeed, Farrell appeared to be embracing the moment at Grauman’s Chinese, spending about 20 minutes greeting fans on Hollywood Boulevard and cracking jokes with reporters on the red carpet. The reboot of the 1990 hit starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is Farrell’s first major action movie in years, though he said he still doesn’t consider himself an action star.

PHOTOS: ‘Total Recall’ premiere red carpet

“The best part about being an action star? Not being able to find your car or house keys 20 minutes before leaving your house five minutes down the road before the premiere,” he kidded.

The 36-year-old did cop to some nerves over the $125-million production’s box-office performance this coming weekend, however. “Oh, you’re aware” of the financial pressure, he said. “A film like this is not meant to do the art-house circuit.”

The reboot certainly looks the part of a glossy, big-budget summer action flick: futuristic sets, booming special effects and the requisite heroines who not only are beautiful but also can kick butt. In “Total Recall,” those females are played by Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale.

Beckinsale -- whose husband, Len Wiseman, directed -- said she was looking forward to watching the movie that evening because she had yet to see it, and fretted that her stunts felt “much less cool than [they] looked while you’re doing it.”

Biel agreed, adding that her martial-arts training would probably not serve her well in a real-life dangerous situation.

“You really feel like you can kick [butt] in life, even though you cannot -- and you have to remember that,” she said. “I think I have an unhealthy view of myself if I were to get in trouble. I would literally be doing a routine that I learned, like, a year ago.”

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Follow Amy Kaufman on Twitter @AmyKinLA. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.

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