This is one starring role Colin Farrell doesn't mind turning down.
An attorney representing former Playboy Playmate Nicole Narain, whom the Alexander star is suing to keep from releasing a sex tape they made three years ago, is grousing that Farrell has avoided giving a deposition in the case.
"We've been trying to do the plaintiff's deposition for the last three months," Narain's lawyer, Leodis Matthews, told Los Angeles KCAL 9 News. "We've heard everything from [drug] rehabilitation to travel outside the country."
Farrell filed a lawsuit in July against Narain, his ex-girlfriend and Playboy's Miss January 2002, claiming she had no right to release the supposedly steamy footage because they had a understanding that it was for private viewing only.
After a snippet of the videotaped romp surfaced online, Narain apparently changed her mind about keeping it private, appearing on MSNBC in November and saying she wanted to make the 15-minute video public. She invited Farrell to join her in splitting the profits as a way they could "take control of the situation."
The pair's sexually explicit escapades ended up hitting the Web anyway, albeit briefly, before the footage was ordered removed in accordance with a temporary restraining order the 29-year-old Irish actor obtained from a Los Angeles court.
Following the leak, Farrell's camp last week added a former Price Is Right model, Candace Smith, as a defendant in the suit, accusing her of attempting to sell the footage to an Internet porn peddler. Reportedly a close associate of Narain's, Smith was Miss Ohio in 2003 before becoming one of Barker's Beauties in 2004. Smith has also appeared as an extra on NBC's Joey and HBO's Entourage.
The judge overseeing the case has set a July 17 trial date.
Farrell's legal eagle, Paul Berra, declined to comment on why his client has been unable to attend a deposition, save the obvious explanation that he's extremely busy.
Aside from wrapping production on a big-screen Miami Vice, the Hollywood bad boy recently completed a stint in rehab for exhaustion and an addiction to painkillers.
Farrell has three more movies in the pipeline: the police drama Pride and Glory, the Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There, and Neil Jordan's period thriller, Borgia.