A conversation with Colin FIRTH

please join me in welcoming tonight's moderator Janet Maslin and our very special guest Colin fth you it it turns out that if anybody in this audience would like to buy a a 2010 Colin furth calendar and and I have a feeling that we have people who would uh if you look on Amazon uh they begin at $125 and they're just I think just 12 head shots of you wow how how would you what what's that what's that about that means I'm worth uh $10 per month on I I don't know it's nothing to do with me I I'm missing a financial opportunity you know did you know did you know about this no okay um no but thank you for the information I'll uh no I'll be contacting my people it be um some of this owes something to the fact that you have lately been going around absolutely beautifully turned out and and as you are in in the single man uh did are you now uh in a Tom Ford wardrobe okay I wanted to tell you it was s and it's um you it's so it I'd be looking at gift horse in the mouth you know if I questioned an offer to be dressed by uh somebody as accomplished as Tom Ford really you know I I have a lot of engagements in which you know I have to be seen and um act act as a notoriously bad dress I mean I don't certainly English actors are we we really don't know what to do when we don't have a script and a character and a and a dresser and a costume designer and um you know most of the time we don't and so we're not quite sure uh who to appear as when we walk out of our front door a film uh that you made not long ago called easy virtue based on a Noel coward play and in it you appear kind of the way uh most of us remember you looking until you met John Ford so so how did you get from there to here no card read that play in I think 1924 it one of his very early plays um and the first person to make and last I think person to make a film of it was Hitchcock which most people wouldn't be aware of it was in 1929 it was a silent film which seems somewhat inconsistent you know when you think of card yes right you know you take one of the greatest you know per of the Bon Mo and and make it silent but he um know that character is Debonair and Dapper and well put together and uh I just came in and thought no um uh it was I just thought it would be much more interesting to um just unthread him and uh created someone who had gone feral in his own family so did you you really did put together I did no I walked in I went I went at the costume fittings and I I looked at the the bow ties and the uh and the SLE lines and all the rest of it and said no I think no ties I want scarves and I think he should be a chain smoker and I think we should have stubble and um it was it was one of those things you look at at a at a story with the benefit of historical hindsight and um it was within 10 years of the first world war which had basically shattered a generation and here was a family with great cultural pretenses and they were doing what the English had been doing for at least 100 years which is pretending they are um an imperial Force which they have long not been and um I think this this was a this film encapsulated that I didn't think noad was conscious of that when he was writing it I think he was too close to it all in a way he wrote you know 5 years after the war but I I just felt you know this is a man who must have been through the war and uh I think he's been destroyed by it and he's given up on the prent um the character is called Mr Whitaker yes and when one looks at the characters you've played there are kind of two categories that jump out there are the misters there's Mr Whitaker there's another mister who will get to later and then there's this list um King George V 6 Lord Henry waten aelius uh Johannes vermier Dr will Stucker William Shakespeare and Lord wessix um do you see any kind of typ casting in either either one of those things no well no I could probably distinguish between most of those um you know I'm just saying that until now you you there were certain kind of roles that you would often be yeah but I mean yeah I mean I King George I 6 and Johannes verir don't have anything in common I don't think okay I mean they might they might they have more in common with each other than either of them has with Tom Ford I would say possibly um no although I think johanes verir and Tom Ford um are both have people who have great artistic sensibilities um I don't think King George I 6 had any at all um um Aurelius was uh at least intent intended to be um a a man who was just full of testosterone and an inclination to violence um that's certainly wasn't George I 6 and certainly not me um and I dare say he didn't come across like that in my hands but um no I don't uh I don't think so they I think they probably reside in the in the imagination as uh as figures who you might find in a book I'm just saying that you've only once played a guy named Vince and you know I only narrowly got to play him as Vince really because he was written in that novel as as this is where the trueu FES yeah U Vince Collins was an Italian ameran and I would have been very happy with the opportunity to play him as an Italian-American but I was I was very quickly told by the director and he was quite right in this really that it would be much more useful to bring some of my baggage to the role and uh it was the first time I realized that my baggage was inevitable and that I was going to have to start lugging it around and um and get used to it and import it into roles which uh I would much rather have started fresh with but actually it was I don't know maybe it's a it was just a sign of uh recognition of of inevitability in the world that that one's work isn't just um dependent on a fresh start or a clean slate that actually you the history that you bring to things and the things that you're assoc associated with may actually also be instruments that you can use uh when you're expressing yourself the the Instinct for an actor is to say you know I do not acknowledge anything outside the world of this character this is it's it's a it's a the challenge of playing a character um conflicts with that and but on this occasion I I realized because this I don't know most people haven't seen where the truth lies I think the figure the viewing figures m about three and there are more of you than that in this room so but the character was uh uh one of a uh an a performing Duo of the 1950s which were distantly very very distantly based on a kind of rat pack leis and Martin kind of Duo uh and we took it a long way from that um and the Vince Collins character is someone who on stage seems like a civilized um English gentleman it's as if no coward had come to Hollywood or perhaps something of Peter Lawford but backstage we see um the the weaknesses and the corruption and the venality of the character and actually we see that I'm psychotic and violent and I'm a drug addict and a perect we had a clip of you of you of you attacking somebody violently you decided against it so there we are now but but atam M Goan was a brilliant director who directed it said that is far more shocking and interesting if you are uh an English gentleman uh than if you are you know Tony Soprano so you know the English gentleman who says just excuse me for a moment I just have to go and beat the crap out of somebody has more impact and I think that he was right um is that same baggage what what led you to uh to Tom Ford and a single man probably I didn't did you know him before he approach really no we'd met a couple of times I mean I don't dwell on my baggage every time I get off at a roll but I it's um uh no this time I didn't look at it as an opportunity to uh to reinvent myself or or toan I don't really think of things that way I don't I'm not I'm not thinking strategically when I when I work but what made him think of you do you think you'd have to ask him I you know he um all I can say is the fact he thought of me um was irresistible to my value um there's nothing like it I mean if you want to get I mean I don't know how many of you here if anybody here makes films but just flattery gets you absolutely everywhere and um to open my computer in the morning and and see Tom Ford I I I didn't give him my email address I still haven't found out who did uh he explained himself in a very El elegant and eloquent email uh the reason he been looking at me uh in a a very piercing and uh enigmatic way on our Brief Encounters over the previous 12 months was this the following and he explained the project that he had in mind and I have to say that the meetings we'd had where where they were at party one was at a party and one was at a at a Premiere and you know the Tom Ford gaze I mean you've you've seen it um in you know behind the the fragrance counter uh but this time it was very specific and and really quite intense and I I really didn't mistake it for flirtation or uh you know or a come on or anything it just it was uh it was sort of inscrutable and and difficult to interpret and this happened twice and this email explained everything and he said I I've been looking at you and it's it's because I have this in mind and I am riveted when I see improbable combinations when I see um you know a sense of the unexpected and the fact that Tom wanted to make a film at all was interesting to me um it very by the time I got to the end of the email I I sense very quickly that this was not a vanity project um that his choice of material suggested to me that this was something very personal to him and uh did you know the material before no no I thought I knew something about Christopher isherwood but I had no idea that he' even gone to La quite frankly I just knew about the VMA stuff you know the the German period which anyone who has a a sort of a cursory knowledge of of ISU would knows and um but no I didn't know anything about this and uh the idea that he want he his choice of material was a lonely gay college professor in 1962 who's decided to kill himself didn't sound like an opportunity to show off his spring collection you know although it kind of was well yeah but I mean I think in some ways people have have have taken shots at him for being who he is and having these extraordinary visual sensibilities and I think if you didn't know anything about I mean we talking about baggage if you didn't know anything about Tom's history and you didn't know that he was a passion designer and you didn't know that he'd been a photographer you would probably look at this firsttime filmmaker and say what beautiful cinematic sensibilities he has and instead I think there's been a great deal of focus on the clothes and I mean they're great but I think they're wonderful at the service of the narrative and I'm speaking very subjectively here as an actor these things help me enormously how did you know that he was going to know what he was doing I didn't know that he would know you can't know you never get you know we would love if we got a guarantee every time that the person you take a risk on will deliver then every film would be a masterpiece you know he was taking a risk as well uh I know I've done a lot of films but this is something I've never been asked to do I mean I wish I was on a regular basis in a way but he was trusting an entire story to me he was entrusting the life of this man it unfolds in one day but it it really is an entire life lived out in a day with every emotion you can conceive of uh or be it within a a fairly contained uh kind of carapace that this man deliberately creates for himself but he wakes up in the morning in a state of despair and then you see him go through in the course of about 15 hours through I um uh rage frivolity hilarity lust regret um irony um um uh you know adoration and sentimentality and it you know Tom to pick an actor and say here this is on your shoulders and this is my story as well CU Tom it was his he he took it much further from he took it a long way from Christopher isherwood really Christopher isherwood did not have the concept of the suicide Tom introduced that um again I'm not going to speak for him but I think that's something that's personal to him and uh I think there's something very uh very stirring very moving when somebody trusts you utterly with something very very personal it's very it's a challenge to reciprocate the trust and so I'm not saying that's why I did it because that happened but this was quite a compelling combination of things you know Tom for decides to make a film he's got a reputation for a certain kind of Brilliance or not a certain kind of on Brilliance on many fronts he he not only is a brilliant designer and has a vision he clearly has enough capacity to communicate that Vision to get things done on a very large scale he also can run a fashion house and not just any fashion house a major one he's credited with turning the entire fashion industry around he's also an utterly brilliant photographer he has a a considerable intellect which is apparent after one minute of talking to him and he has the kind of quality that you engage with and all those things you know those those are a lot of boxes that a lot of directors do not tick quite frankly however many films they've made and um this piece of writing was unique could you tell it all ahead of time what the rhythm of this film was going to be because it's it's it's there's a lot of staring there's a lot of slow walking there's a lot of very measured behavior and you're used to doing some things at a much more um uh you know different kind of energy level no what couldn't tell as I said you can't definitively tell anything but I I had a sense that it would have to be something like that this did not read uh as something that was plotty I I mean you watch the film there's no way it's plotty um it's I mean that was that was something to be wary of in a way but I also don't really like plotty things I mean I did a film called Geneva uh which in some ways this resonated um with which is also about grief and also with which is also about grief and also has very little that you could call plot in the conventional sense it's a kind of tone poem and I like I love that kind of Cinema and I love Cinema that makes use of the human face and I love Cinema that that makes use of things other than three acts and you know uh a kind of conventional McGuffin um there's a scene at the beginning of the film that makes it clear that everything about it is going to be very distinctive looking it's a scene where you walk through snow very deliberately to to the it's a dream uh you know that better than I do but but to to the scene of a car accident and uh and and it's that the walking is is is almost like a kind of sleepwalking do were things like that to did he tell you exactly how he wanted that or he didn't actually funly enough um I've actually questioned whether it it I should have made that choice and whether it should have been so uh almost Baltic you know it's it's very eerie it really works but well you know it it maybe it does and I I trust Tom's judgment and he wanted to use it and he used it and have you ever done anything like that before well I've done lots of things that are not like anything uh and I think this is no not really I mean I've done I have been involved in dream sequences in which your movement is required to be different and to change I think it has to be unearthly I think it has to not seem like a part of daily life I mean I think if you're if you're acting out dreams um you have to find a convention for that and I think that this is an area where I just had to trust him he was the man behind the camera he was the man who was going to be in The Cutting Room he was the man who was going to choose the music and he was the man who was going to ultimately decide the pace of the film and so Tom had a way of accepting of of directing You by either accepting or rejecting what you gave him if he intervened verbally it was to provide a nugget it was never to tussle with you or to uh upset the process or to try to provoke anything did you have any input along the lines of I think I should be wearing glasses and this you did well glasses is actually the one uh I said I think I should be wearing glasses really yes I I just guessed that that was well we did not plan this um yes that was one and give and funny enough I given that Tom is famous for eyewear I I had some concern when the film came out that that that it would be yet another thing that would be attributed to Tom's idea of style and believe me it wasn't that was one of the few things Tom resisted a little bit I thought why did you want that well I didn't I didn't think I want to wear glasses throughout the movie I just basically there were options I walked into a room and there were here were ties and shoes and here was the suit and uh and I don't I don't remember there being much choice about what the suit would be but I remember there being certain accessories and there there was a the props guys just brought out a tray with some glasses and said you know if he do you feel like you might wear glasses when you read or something and I look through them and I I have you know I've resisted them quite a lot a lot of directors dop director photography doesn't like them usually because Reflections and yeah and then there are directors who think now it creates a barrier and then there'll be people who say no it's a kind of it's it's a it's a crutch it's an acting crutch it's a it's something to try to enhance artificially enhance what you're doing whatever uh but I just happen to find these and they just kind of pick I picked them up and they it's almost like they vibrated I just thought and I I tried them on and and uh thought I I I Really they just instinctively go with my perception of this guy and I want to wear them at the time it was just maybe I'd have a couple of scenes where I'd put them on for reading and then those couple of scenes that that was allowed and those couple of scenes became another scene and another one and then just Tom gradually [Music] um I I mean when I say gradually we shot this movie in 21 days so nothing was really gradual but uh probably after lunch of the first day or something um Tom saw me in them and said uh I think uh wear them in the scene if you want and I said really and he said yeah I think you like them so wear them and that was the way he did things it was if you want if you like if that makes you feel and so you always felt you were in control and I look back I know he was totally in control all the time um there has been some talk about the way the the movie has been marketed with showing scenes of you with her uh uh and and some people have said not me of course but some people have said that that gives gives a misleading impression that this is actually about a heterosexual relationship when really it's about a man who's lost his his the man he loved well answer I don't know it's it's difficult for me to comment on the marketing thing um possibly but you know this there's been a maybe maybe maybe maybe there's still a fear out there that um the idea that it's about a gay man makes it a kind of Niche thing that that will um you know that'll stop it reaching certain markets and certain areas of uh you know middle England Middle America middle anywhere I don't know and maybe they're right uh but I I I don't want it to be that I mean there there would there were no compromises in Christopher is there were no compromises in the way Tom wrote it or directed it there no compromises in anything we did uh and I would hate to think there were any compromises in the way it was marketed um I do there was one there was a bit of a fuss about the trailer um because there's a it features a kiss between uh myself and Matthew good and there was a version I think that came out that took the kiss out and there were various members of the press uh who qu questioned that and um I was asked about it and looking back on that yeah I I would hate to think that again you know there's nothing to stize here but on the other hand that that's the only kiss between men in the movie and you know why you know it's not a trailer is supposed to give you a taster for the film and that that doesn't do that and it it probably Mis represents it a little bit as being heavily to do with you know sexual contact of which there is absolutely none so you know these are gray areas I think which can get picked over and argued over and all the rest of it but yeah beyond the fact that he he is a gay man he's lost the man that he's been with for 16 years he he meets a couple of other men during the course of the of the film do do you see this as a as a particularly gay or Universal or what or what kind of Love Story do you see it as certainly not particularly gay I I don't really think that I mean it doesn't ignore the fact and um it certainly applies it makes him more secretive or have to be more so yeah it does it might it makes it but people are secretive about their sexuality in one way or another generally anyway unless they're Italian sorry that's a dig at my wife no it's um I think people you know people not everybody flaun their sexuality but I take your point I think that um certainly in 1962 uh you know he's a he's a he's a college professor it might made might have made people more suspicious of him it might I certainly in the 70s when I was a a teenage school boy the idea that anybody might be gay also implied that they might also be some kind of Predator you know that those are the kind of prejudices and uh I think we live with those less now in our soci um one of the few things that's distinctly I think um uh gay in in the writing is that there's a young student who gets a a crush on or becomes interested in being helpful and getting to know your character better and he's a woman might be just as aggressive but would probably do it in a different way wouldn't wouldn't say I want to help you come out for a drink with me have you ever taken drugs things possibly but a young male student might do it with an older female Professor yeah um so you know you can juggle this around I still think you could find a very very similar story without it being a gay theme I think it might add somewhat to George's isolation but I I don't think it's dependent on it and uh you know I I I think one of the most interesting and Progressive aspects to Christopher isherwood's writing was the fact that he made absolutely he put no emphasis whatsoever on the sexuality of his characters and yet he wrote about their sexuality but their sexual orientation was not an issue at all it was just by the by I mean these were people who happen to be gay or or not why do the why are the heterosexuals in the movie so gaset which they are are they now hang on let me do a little audit of the heterosexuals you mean that Lee pac's character the people next door I don't think that's to do with them being heterosexual I think that's to do with them being Suburban okay you know I think that's GE that's that's that's Christopher isherwood as well because he created that family in the book but he's living right next door I know but it's he has to live amongst them and and I think he's basically that's issued and with a lot of help from Tom Ford sticking it to the suburbs um and I you know he subverts self all the time though I mean the strunks are a pretty ghastly family and I have to say the strunks they called the strunks this was is's name for the for the for the neighbors and the and the snotty kids and the you know and the dad who does think that George is lighten the loers and should be put in the Coliseum and all the rest of it um you know it's interesting about you know we can consider ourselves Progressive and enlightened and when it comes to you know the great March of Liberation for marginalized groups of people but you know the scene in which I shot the phone call in which I get the news that that that Jim is dead and that I also cannot come to the funeral because it's family only we happen to be also the day on which Prop 8 was passed in California and suddenly you don't feel quite so lofty about you know how far we've come and um you know we can't patronize the past and and the and you know we're actually that was that it was just very resonant to me that we shot a scene like that in a moment when such an a horrendously retrograde piece of legislation was passed and um on the way to work that day we were shooting mostly at night in the afternoon I I I was driven through those suburbs of Glendale or whever it was and and uh there were families out in force you know nice you know was be perfect uh nuclear families that look like you know um kind of you know holic commercials from the 1950s and uh they you know with ads up blackards are promoting prop eight you know smile and honk your horn for discrimination you know and um you know so I don't think the film takes up a militant stance I don't think it it it it in fact I think it does the opposite I think it does what isherwood would have intended which is it just makes it unassuming it's it creates a world in which actually your sexuality belongs in the mainstream along with everyone else is even though I know what the background is even though I know that George he does the lecture on fear I know it refers to that but I don't think it's dependent on it you've said that Paul scoffield is one of your favorite actors um the chance to to hold forth and and and really give a speech like that did you did you no that's not what I loved about Paul SC f it wasn't it wasn't his King Le or his a there's a voice similarity a little bit I think well bless you for that I mean you know I'll take it um no it was I know I've been quitted on this I've said it over and over again um Man For All Seasons it was to do it was how little he did um it wasn't his uh oratory and his you know the Grandeur of his style it was actually the fact that it was the first time I was about 12 13 14 years old it was the first time I I I had a I developed a new concept of what acting was which was the idea that you can do everything without doing anything and it was a paradox which gripped me at that age um you know and it's a paradox which exists in in acting and if you you can probably expand that to just about every art form because it's all artifice which seeks to to create truth did you know at that age that you wanted to be an actor that's when I wanted to become an actor probably you know to look at somebody and think that I'm getting truth here I'm I'm just just exuding truth I'm feeling the quality of of truthfulness whatever that is and it's it's a very nebulous commodity but I'm that's it's giving me at least a hankering for it and to look at it a face which it just conveyed truthfulness um and yet I knew this was a man who was engaged in an exercise which was by its very job description and nature artificial he was acting he was pretending he wasn't really Thomas Moore he didn't really live in the in the 16th century he wasn't about to get his head cut off he was just another thespian like me you or I was going to be just just was you know showing up in front of a camera so that that gried me and tell them I had always looked ADM my demonstrative acting and you know the the clever stuff but here I just saw something coming out of a guy's eyes so little movement and I thought where does that come from just this is an odd little thing but the there there's a young blonde student a girl uh sitting there and there there are a couple of other women in the movie also uh who number one sort of remind us of movie stars of that of that period She looks like a young BAU and uh and and your character looks some in eye and and uh is somehow very struck by their heavily made up eyes uh and I wondered what that was well Tom had a thing about eyes because I think it was to do with making it was to do with connectivity he has one day to live you know this is or this is what he's decided and there's a line that George has to Kenny at the end where he said the only thing that's made it all worthwhile been the few moments when I've actually connected with another human being and you know obviously it's in in the in the language of Cinema it's going to be about eyes even though Tom tries to bring all the other senses in uh and he does it beautifully I think they seem very stylized the women's well it might seem stylized but I don't think the intention was to do with style I think it was to do with I mean her eyes she was basically the model As I understood it for her was not but it was Nico and that there's a certainly she has nothing if not a certain F you know and um you know Kenny is the one who's reaching out and saying I want to I want to save you all these eyes are basically I think calling George back to life again having decided he's going to give up on it these are eyes which are saying you know I I would I'm reaching out I would save you if I could whether it's the Hustler outside the liquor store or the owner of the little dog that he he meets uh her eyes are saying nothing her eyes are the cold eyes of you know indifference I don't care what happens to you and blowing smoke absolutely the blowing of smoke and that that lecture hall is full of people who do not care one way or the other what George is talking about um isn't it sort of paradoxical that you played a guy who was close to the end of his life and and deciding about that while getting into absolute perfect physical condition for the role well no well all right yes it is um and bless you for saying perfect physical condition there a lot to do with lighting and [Music] um basically I think that George um tries to achieve Perfection uh out of out of desperation um he puts on his cufflinks and his typin as if his life depended on them I got the sense that this is a man you take if you take is typ in he will fall apart it takes time in the morning to become George you know I I put together the slightly stiff but perfectly but but utterly perfect to that's body armor that is not decoration that is not uh uh vanity that is a a weapon against a terror of complete chaos which I think is Raging inside him he is uh grief strick grief stricken to an almost hysterical degree um he's woken up in the morning among the first things you hear him say in the interior monologue is that it it hurts to wake up he does not like being in the present moment waking up begins with the words am and now those that's the way the novel starts and inhabiting the present is intolerable and that is why he has decided to kill himself and in his world and in his perception that is a perfectly rational decision to make and what I think is is magical about this story is that everything that happens to him is a challenge to that decision the decision to give up on life that the the the the the he has passed judgment on life as not being worth living and everything that happens challenges that he except for the people next door well except he meets the little girl from next door who s who suddenly has gone from being the brat next door to the most beautiful child he's ever seen and I think that the one of the most poignant things about the story is that the things he sees which are all like visions of beatitude or kind of you know holy Revelations are all completely andly mundane everyday things the sunset which looks like a a vision of paradise is just a smog uh the most beautiful face he's ever seen in his life is the Hustler outside the liquor store I know I mean I know he happened to cast the most super but he's heightening things because this is George's perception I mean let's say we're seeing things through George's eyes let's say we had the opportunity to go back and look at the actual things George saw that day and if we were there we might go now the sunset wasn't really that red and the sunset was smog by I mean it's you know it's pollution uh it's but and and if we went back there that wouldn't be you know the Hustler outside the liquor store probably wouldn't have been played by John kot herena you know who is a supermodel he would just look like any other Hustler outside liquor store um I only know he's a supermodel because I looked up his and he was in a film call know but but basically I think that that that Tom is heightening things not because he's a fashion designer trying to give us you know just flaunting his skills I think that he is sincerely trying to say this is a day in which the senses are sharpened uh in which everything you see is because you're seeing them for the last time that actually today it's as if you're seeing them for the first time do you know the Iranian film Taste of cherry I haven't seen it because it's it's similar yeah well the very different style but um the concept is the also someone who wants to uh well I mean listen Dennis Potter gave the most Prof really I almost painfully um poignant series of interviews as he was dying that was part of the Great English writer um as he was dying of cancer he basically decid he he decided to um to discuss his illness and and the process of dying uh publicly and he talked about flowers I mean there's a moment where George sees a rose and again it's he knows in his mind that's the last Rose he'll ever SE so it's more than just a rose you know it's it's a spiritual experience and uh talk about being in the present you know this is a man who despises the present who suddenly finds he's inhabiting the present because the present is upon him because it's all over within a few hours and Potter talks about looking outside the window beyond the desk where he would write and seeing the blossoms and I don't know how long he lived in that house and he' the blossoms I mean this is distant memory so I can only paraphrase what he said but he looked out at these flowers that he had seen year after year after year and he'd always liked them but this time he knew he would never see them again and he wasn't quite sure how long he had but there was no way he was going to make make it to another spring and he said so that today they became the brightest most beautiful most vibrant whitest Blossom blossoms that I'd ever seen and I I'd never forgotten that I I mean I that that came 15 years I think before we shot this film but when I read the script some of that came back to me that whether it was about the way a woman wears her hair or the perfume that she's wearing or the way a dog's ears smell or uh the way that just a young boy's face looks and he's not trying to have sex with this guy um or the way a child looks on this particular day a child he's seen every day of his life who today is an angel because he'll never see a child again or whether it's the owl in the back Garden or breathing the night air which is just in his own backyard but tonight it's the night air that is basically feeling like the world just came into being and this has this all this freshness these all are all things that conspire to make him want to live you know so it's it it people ask me is the film depressing you know it's about a man to die I think that you know we we should all be so lucky to have a day like that um when people uh mention the film I find they they number one they talk about your performance and number two they all talk about the same scene which is the scene uh with the telephone how did you do that I don't know I mean you know it's I just did the I acted the script I mean Tom pointed a camera at the chair and switched it on and there we were you only had 21 days did you do that over and over or is that an early take or that was um that was the day I was talking about where prop eight passed and uh um it was also the day that uh Barack Obama won the election in this country and uh there was General Euphoria and I shared in that and so I was feeling pretty happy actually um uh in fact just as we were about to go for a take the S guy took off his cans and played kan's concession speech and uh and so there we were kind of you know we didn't know each other very well that was about the fourth day of the shoot or the fifth day I think and uh we were just you know beside ourselves with relief um and Tom basically I think the magic that he has as a director is that he allows space for things to happen even though there is no time something I touched on earlier the illusion of of Freedom when there really isn't any the illusion of time when actually we don't have any um there was never any haste and frankly he just allowed me to inhabit the moment the script doesn't say George hangs up the phone and then we stay on him for a while none of that's on the page really not at all it was just the dialogue and then it cuts to I think uh my running to Charlie's house were you talking to somebody or did you not even to Chris White's the producer um he was on the other end of the phone he did a great job um it's a different actor subsequently um and what I tell you what happened Ian it was a very unusual experience in that um I just I acted the scene it's a very it's let me just go it's one of the most difficult things I find as an actor I think all actors find and we we actually had drama school exercises based on facing this challenge is to start a scene in one emotional state and end it in another one you know if you get if you have a scene of emotional Devastation we all prefer as Aus to prepare the emotional Devastation before the camera rolls you know and you can sit there for a while and get quiet and use music or whatever it is you use and you know and then say I've got my emotional Devastation prepared roll camera quickly before it goes away and uh that's what we like to do um one of the things when you read a script that actually where your heart sinks one is a naked man on bed which is how this script open um and the other is um you know George picks up the phone perfectly happy chat chat chat um uh bad news uh terrible news um you got to end the scene and however you end the scene and the script did not tell you how he wanted the emotional trajectory to go so I just didn't no I actually I thought there wouldn't be any tears here I thought this is you just hear the news you're kind of numb and then we cut to a scene later of Devastation so I didn't have any plans for it and I didn't think Tom did he just thought he'd see what happened but in for the sake of seeing what happened he did something which I think was inspirational which is he just let he just no notes no no verbal instructions just go action play scene put phone down and I just noticed he wasn't saying cut and we just went on and on and on and I just sat in that chair I don't quite know how long it takes for a magazine of film to roll out I think it took about it felt like 10 minutes I think than you somebody said it was 11 minutes I'm not sure and uh no one said cut the the the magazine just went rolled out and so I knew we were done they weren't in the room the only people in the room were the camera operator and the sound guy with the Boom the others were in another room watching a monitor and I thought well the Magazine's rolled out how are we doing and I went into the next room and um they were all emotional I think everybody must been crying and then no Tom didn't really say anything he just said well let's do that again they put another magazine of film in we did all of it again so the tricky thing really was just having to go back to happy to start the to start the scene so it was like picking up the phone oh I've been waiting for you to call all day it's been raining oh how you been say and then just go through the Journey again and then he let the magazine roll out again and then he did it again and he put another Magazine on so we had three of those and then he did a shot from the side we were done but it was pretty simple I mean I think one of the things it it is edited I mean it looks like just one long sequence it's not it's it's very much Tom's work he sculpted and craft them crafted the moments um he had a lot of material I mean I pity the people watching the DVD featurette you know you might get all the alternative bits of emotional masturbation you don't get but um no I mean he he you know he couldn't last forever and he picked his moments and he worked with a a brilliant brilliant editor and um you know he he there's something almost musical about the way Tom shaped things about the the Judgment that he used for the emotional Hills and Valleys of it if you like uh so because of the way he did it and because of the way you did that scene and because of the way you did the whole thing you now find yourself kind of down the rabbit hole and going to from talk show to talk show from Awards thing to Awards thing this is not the only red carpet you're going to be on anytime soon are you enjoying that what's it like you are you are good I'm loving it that's that's wonderful nobody ever says that they don't say they're loving it no they they say it's just anguish uh yeah weird isn't it I mean it's like you know what what is that quote about those who were the gods wish to punish you know they fulfill their dreams or whatever um you know I I no I'm okay I'm doing fine thank you I mean you know Bring It On [Laughter] really um there's something about being about this happening at my age you know I'm I I haven't had a lot of this you know so in terms of awards recognition and you know my my shelf is full of awards that are pretty hard to explain you know you mentioned something about a fishing yeah I do that's that's true no the the ostend Fisherman's Choice uh the fishing Village in Belgium uh and and don't want to BU it I'm very proud I'm so I'm I'm glad I'm build with big with Belgian fisherman and I fine you know Len Stein's People Choice gay films of gay interest award or something you you won the uh I think in Venice the queer lion I did I've got what does that look like I don't know what it looks like I haven't laid my hands on it yet but I who doesn't want a queer lion no I mean I'm I'm I'm very proud of all these things and um uh there's there's there is definitely some stress that accompanies this stuff uh the Venice moment was wonderful that was that was a you know when the Venice Film Festival um that was wonderful in a completely uncomplicated way uh it had everything going for it the film had never been seen publicly um and it was shown for the first time in front of an audience and they just loved it and we walked in and the press conference I people don't clap at press conferences they usually snar I mean you walk in you walk in and you there's a you looking at a wall of at best inscrutability if not utter hostility and uh this was Applause and people some of them were on their feet and not everybody agreed how much they liked the film but there was a general consensus that they liked it and some people adored it and we were all there together and then the the screening at Venice um was I think a moment to be cherished for life really because as I said this was a short shoot there were very few of us making it I was on my own as an actor on the set most of the time I mean we the other actors when they showed up were uh a kind of vacation from my job because they made it so easy they were so brilliant there's nothing like having brilliant actors to to just you know give you give you your job for nothing when Julianne showed up I I didn't have to do anything anymore she was just so good all I had to do was react and it's the same with Nick Halton Matthew good and even John kotena who plays a beautiful model outside the liquor store we're talking about he' never acted in his life he was absolutely terrified but I found him so good and so relaxed as an actor I didn't feel I had to do a damn thing um so I had all that for nothing but they weren't around that much and so there were a lot of lonely days on the set where I was sort of going around craft service wondering if I could allow myself an M&M and still be able to close my Tom for jacket um I was going to ask you about the Hershey bar in the movie by the way it's like the on on on the desk on your SP out no I didn't eat it but it's it's the only sign of any kind of disarray in the entire movie that's interesting yeah one of George's little sort of yeah and you only see it once it's not there's a cut and then it's not there anymore his Whiskey Bottle you could attribute that to something of the fact that it's empty he didn't you know he his three last aspirin you know I think they're they're little signs of how he sustains himself well anyway so there you were at the Golden Gloves oh yeah [Laughter] it's not a clear memory I have to say partly because they didn't feed us so um you if your if your dinner consists entirely of champagne um it it's a wonderful anesthetic I mean I have to say you know if you have any expectations for awards and and at 50 they you know if there's something wrong with you if they're not under careful management by that age um one is you know recognition of how worthy your opponent is and the other is alcohol and um and and also quite frankly you know I woke up the red carpet and I walked into the room and I looked at where everyone was seated it didn't look favorable I mean I Jeff Bridges was kind of right next to the yeah Bridges was next to the microphone that he was about and I was in if the rammed up against the wall you know you can't get much further back there there was a table and there was a wall I wasn't just at the last table you know who pointed this out it was Clooney at the at the end of the even Clooney I ran into Clooney at the end and he said man I thought you were going to win till I saw where you were [Laughter] [Applause] seated and then where the table was I was at the back of the last table not at the front of the last table with a little bit of access it it was as if they they couldn't have squeezed me further it was like you know you're not even going to the men's room you know if IID even had an olive I would not have been able to say and so what we had to do I actually it wasn't me that even asked us somebody around that table very generously said we need to move the table and I said well you don't do that at the Golden Globes I mean there are cameras everywhere you don't get a list of A-list a bunch of A-list people lifting up a table to move but they did and and you know what had there been a camera on us you would have seen you would have seen us all standing up you would have seen me Saia lant Kate Hudson Tom Ford Julian Moore Fergie and Livia all going one two three who just so that I could breathe so if there's anything to keep your your hopes under management thank you so [Applause] [Music] much oh [Music]

Channel: FIRTH FIRST

Views: 83,585

Keywords: Mark Darcy, Darcy, Colin, Colin FIRTH

Id: CPqxNtExrK8

Length: 55min 10sec (3310 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2016