Actress Brooke Shields (L) stands beside actress Elizabeth Taylor on stage following Taylor's state of AIDS address at the 2006 Macy's Passport and American Express fundraiser and fashion show in Santa Monica, California on September 28, 2006. Macy's Passport has raised nearly 22 million dollars for HIV/AIDS agencies the past 24 years. (UPI Photo/Jim Ruymen) | License Photo

Cast member Colin Farrell attends the premiere of the biographical motion picture drama "Saving Mr. Banks" , the untold backstory of how the classic film 'Mary Poppins' made it to the screen, at Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California on December 9, 2013. UPI/Jim Ruymen | License Photo

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Irish actor Colin Farrell says he befriended screen icon Elizabeth Taylor about two years before her 2011 death and regrets not becoming her eighth husband.

The 37-year-old "Saving Mr. Banks" star made the comments on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" Monday.


Farrell said he had his publicist contact Taylor's representatives and set up a meeting in 2009.

"I got to have an audience with her," he told DeGeneres. "And that was the beginning of a year and a half or two years of what was a really cool [relationship]. It was kind of like the last -- it feels like in my head, not hers, I'm projecting -- but the last kind of romantic relationship I had. Which was never consummated."

Farrell went on to say he and Taylor both had trouble sleeping so he would call her up and talk to her into "the wee hours."

"I just adored her," Farrell said. "She was a spectacular, spectacular woman. I wanted to be [husband] No. 8, but we ran out of road."

Taylor died at the age of 79 after years of poor health.