Colin Farrell loves doing things that scare him.

The Irish actor has been discussing his decision to star in a remake of Total Recall. He wants to constantly challenge himself and believed the sci-fi film would be a departure from his usual roles.

"I liked that the idea of doing it scared the sh*te out of me," he told Empire. "I've been quite content, creatively, for the last six or seven years, doing films that, budget-wise, were smaller in scale. Doing a really, really big film is terrifying, but it's that fear around it that makes it attractive."

The film sees Colin play a factory worker who starts to think he might actually be a spy.

The science-fiction movie is set in the future and Colin was astounded when he first saw some of director Len Wiseman's ideas.

"I met Len, and I saw some artwork and I was just blown away by the notion that I could be involved in something as magnificent as what I was seeing, which was sort of all-encompassing, cinematically," he explained. "A child's mind could only wish it could dream in that sort of scale."

Total Recall also stars Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel.