Colin Farrell on pal Elizabeth Taylor: "I miss her"

Colin Farrell may have seemed like an unlikely guest at Elizabeth Taylor's funeral last week, but the Irish actor and the Hollywood icon were actually good pals.

"How did we become friends? You know, the old story of boy meets girl, and boy pesters girl with too many phone calls at inappropriate hours of the night," Farrell joked to "Access Hollywood." "I was just lucky enough to become her friend in the last year and a half. I adore her … still."

Taylor was also a big fan of Farrell. In an interview published in the March issue of Harper's Bazaar, the movie legend dished about today's crop of leading men. "I love Johnny Depp, and I love Colin Farrell — both brilliant, nuanced actors with great range," she said.

Farrell read the poem "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo" at Taylor's funeral and said he was "sad and honored" when a friend of the star called to ask him to be part of the service.

"It was a tricky poem as well," he noted. "Even in passing she had me under the thumb, sweating bricks! … I just miss her; I just miss her; I just miss her."

Death of Hollywood Queen Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor , the Oscar-winning movie goddess and pioneering AIDS activist whose off-screen marriages, divorces and death-defying exploits rivaled her films for drama died today, her family said in a statement.

She was 79, and had been hospitalized in recent weeks for congestive heart failure.

"Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts," son Michael Wilding said.

Taylor starred in 50-plus movies. She made the leap from child star to world's biggest star. She won two Oscars, for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?
Other signature films included National Velvet , Father of the Bride , Giant , and Cleopatra , on the set of which she began a notorious love affair with costar Richard Burton , whom she would marry, divorce, remarry and divorce again.

In all, Taylor celebrated eight marriages and endured seven divorces.
"I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands," she said in a recent interview with Kim Kardashian for Harper's Bazaar . "For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else."

Of all her off-screen accomplishments, most notably she helped raised more than$200 million for AIDS research. In the family statement, Wilding praised his mother's "brave and relentless fight" for the cause.
In 2009, Taylor announced, via her Twitter page—yes, she rolledwith the times—that she was to undergo heart surgery to repaira valve. Her most recent hospitalstint, at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai, where she died, began in February.
"Everything was handed to me. Looks, fame, wealth, honors, love," she said in 1999. "But I've paid for that luck with disasters,the deaths of so many good friends, terrible illnesses, destructive addictions, broken marriages."
"All things considered, I'm damnedlucky to be alive."