Woman’s ‘butterfly skin’ means she can’t be touched without extreme pain as Colin Farrell speaks about new doc
Colin Farrell has spoken about his upcoming documentary with his ‘super good pal’, Emma Fogarty, who has a rare condition known as ‘butterfly skin’ which causes her extreme pain any time her skin is touched.
Fogarty and Farrell appear together in The Slightest Touch, a new documentary which focuses on her life with Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) and friendship with ‘longtime pal’ Farrell.
The Irish celebrity also lets cameras into his home in a rare insight into his personal life. His sons James and Henry both appear in the documentary, with Farrell having been a longtime supporter of charities for people with Angelman syndrome after James was diagnosed as a toddler.
Fogarty’s EB, commonly known as ‘butterfly skin’ means that her skin breaks out into painful blisters and even tears when met with small amounts of friction or touch.
The fellow actor is filmed in the documentary as she approaches her 40th birthday, with Farrell deciding to run the Dublin Marathon with her to celebrate as it is an age doctors had previously told her she would never make it to.
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He completed the marathon earlier this year, running with her in a wheelchair for the last four kilometres of the race.
Appearing on This Morning to talk about this Farrell joked that his legs ‘sped up’ when he saw her and ran the last few miles, but wanted to clarify a common misconception.
He said: “I wanted it to be very obvious [in the documentary], the truth of our relationship is mutuality.” He explained that it wasn’t ‘this famous actor pitying her’ and said they were ‘super good pals’ who have known one another for 16 years now.
The creators of The Slightest Touch call the doc a ‘moving celebration of friendship, community, and the extraordinary strength found in human connection’.
Farrell said when the film was announced: “I can’t think of The Slightest Touch as a film, certainly not like any film I’ve ever been a part of before. For me, it’s simply a collage of home videos, moments in time that we all shared during its making.”
Speaking on The Late Late Show Fogarty explained why they went with four kilometres, one to represent each decade she has been alive with EB.
The pair met at a charity event in 2010 when Farrell sat next to Fogarty and she said it felt like they’d known each other ‘for 100 years’ from the moment they met in an interview with The Independent.
She said: “From the start, I always just wrote to him like I would any friend, filling him in on my life and asking questions about his.
“He began to respond to me in the same way. We still write to one another a lot, and talk, like friends do, about deep and personal things …He can trust me - that’s the truth - and I can trust him. That is sacred to me.”
The doc’s director Rachel Fleit said of the movie: ““Making this film brought me back, over and over, to what I think matters most in life: love, care, community, and the friendships that carry us.
“It was an honour to bear witness to the extraordinary bond between Emma and Colin, and I’m deeply grateful to HBO Documentary Films for helping bring this story, and its message, to audiences around the world.”
The Slightest Touch debuts 26 November on HBO Max.
Topics: TV and Film, Health, Celebrity, Colin Farrell
Michael Slavin
