I wasn't suicidal, but I never had much of a will to live [for] a long time," Colin Farrell told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper last year. "Now I want to watch my son grow up.... He is the greatest priority in my life."

That devotion was evident in a revealing interview Farrell, 31, the nightlife legend and star of Alexander and Miami Vice, gave to Ireland's Sunday World newspaper on Oct. 14. Disclosing for the first time that his son James has Angelman syndrome, a rare neurogenetic disorder that slows development and impairs speech and motor skills (see box), Farrell said he felt "incredibly blessed" by parenthood. "The only time I'm reminded that there is something different about him—that he has some deviation of what is perceived to be normal—is when I see him with other 4-year-olds," he said. "From day one I felt that he's the way he's meant to be."

Certainly there were plenty of skeptics who doubted whether Farrell was ready to be a father. (James's mother is model Kim Bordenave, whom the actor dated briefly in 2003.) After earning a doctorate in hard partying—for years, it seemed, he seldom met a woman he didn't want to nuzzle, and, on one particularly wild night, he broke his heel and wrist falling down a flight of stairs—Farrell entered rehab for a dependency on prescription medication in '05.

Since then, the actor—who has been dating Dublin student Muireann McDonnell, 21, for almost a year—has been more doting father than playboy. On his frequent trips with James to Miami, a city Farrell grew to love while filming Vice in 2005, "Colin holds James on his belly and looks in his eyes—it's the sweetest thing you've ever seen," says a source. "It's like there's nothing in the world but father and son."

And like any proud father, Farrell couldn't help but share the recent moment when James took his first steps. "It was four years in the making," he told the Sunday World. "It was incredibly emotional. There wasn't a dry eye in the house."

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Colin Cleans Up
"I was burning the candle at both ends," Farrell told Britain's Daily Mirror last year of his hard-partying days. Rehab in '05 "was a long time coming."

What Is Angelman Syndrome?
A rare neurogenetic disorder affecting fewer than 5,000 individuals in the United States and Canada, Angelman syndrome (AS) is caused by a missing or defective portion of the 15th chromosome. Often mistakenly diagnosed as cerebral palsy or autism, its symptoms include developmental delays, lack of speech, difficulty learning to walk and, in some cases, seizures. But because the disorder does not affect social development, children with AS "are happy and engaging, very affectionate," says Eileen Braun, executive director of the Angelman Syndrome Foundation, which funds research and education. The disorder doesn't seem to affect longevity: "There are people in their 60s and 70s with Angelman syndrome," Braun says.