Colin Firth: A Life in Pictures

[Music] colin firth has been a staple of british film and television for more than 20 years winning audiences with diverse roles that showcases natural charm and quiet confidence it was the 1995 BBC television adaptation Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that made Colin Firth a household name his performances the aloof mr. Darcy earned him a BAFTA nomination and pot throb status this performance also mate in the object of affection for fictional journalist Bridget Jones created by Helen Fielding I really am sorry this film also gave birth his first BAFTA Film Award nomination for Best Actor in 2008 first embraced his role as one of the three prospective fathers in blockbusting musical Mamma Mia singing and dancing his way around a sunkissed Greek island last year first enjoyed glowing reviews for his performance as a college professor grieving the sudden death his partner in Tom Ford's a single man performance a great restraint and subtlety it earned for his first BAFTA Week his current film recounts the unlikely friendship between the stammer afflicted King George the sixth and his speech therapist it clearly cements Colin Firth's status of the leading line well to something which I think people tend to assume about you and see whether we can kind of nail that early on are you a posh public school boy no so no I'm IFL my eleven plus I didn't make it to grammar school and I went to a secondary model and so that's my background I've been accused of lying when I've told that story in interviews I've actually had one very well-known journalist who it almost killed the interview actually because either said well we can't go any further if you're just going to be that dishonest because you you clearly are a public school boy because you'd lived in America it was not just America was it was sort of West country thing as well I would not have survived intact had I spoke like this in school either in America or in Hampshire because Hampshire the school I went to they will spoke like that and I spoke like that from the age of eight seven days about sixteen and I sort of skate through my a-levels and and ended up with people who are well-spoken and also considered quite cool so I was able to bring the two things together whose obviously was clear to you then before the stage what he started to change your accent that you wanted to be an actor from the age of about five I got lots of attention for doing idiotic pantomimes and any any chance to put on a frock and get in the middle of the class and always you know I was always first in line for that stuff and because it was one of the few things as a schoolboy that I got approval for I became a kind of addiction really that and a fascination of storytelling with storytelling at me I fell in love with stories and read as soon as I could quite avidly and at the same time I had all the grown-ups telling me you'll have to find a professional you'll have to him you're an engineer or a lawyer or doctor or war what my family tended to produce which were teachers clergyman clergy women missionaries and doctors the age of around 14 I had a drama teacher an extracurricular drama teacher I used to do drama workshops on the Saturday and because I fancied her I tended to listen to her advice more than that of my parents or any of my career ISM and she said he could see that you know any seems an incredibly simple thing but I don't think I've ever felt so liberated in my life I mean I just went back to my maths class the next day London drama centers you have the role in another country onstage first of all which is obviously public school boy into espionage kind of and then film thereafter did you feel at that time that you wanted to be a film actor rather than a stage actor I didn't think I'd ever get a film role now I had I was an extraordinarily pretentious student and I had the ideas that I wouldn't settle for anything less than cutting-edge experimental theatre and I thought that I wasn't I had nothing to do with the middle classes but I started I realized every drama school saw me as Lord Brideshead but she also had tumbledown which came thereafter on on television and and then you went to Hollywood you made Valmont with me lost form and I mean that must have seemed at that stage that all your dreams come true yes I mean short lived as it was Foreman had come to town and the whole of the English film industry was abuzz with this he was casting and everybody was showing up to read for him and everyone had to read for him and it didn't matter what your status was in the film industry you went and you've additions and militias an extraordinarily charming man but he's also extremely rude and he doesn't have a mendacious bone in his body if he doesn't if you thinks he'll rubbish he'll say why are you rubbish why do exactly what you just did this great I loved everything fine exactly like this but do it one more time but this time convincing what you should say I think about those you've almost really good oh yeah and the tragedy of Vermont was that Dangerous Liaisons came right up against it and essentially it's the same timing yeah yeah it's interesting how people seeing that film ten years afterwards have appreciated it much more a friend of mine I remember wrote to me and said it it's like a wine it's better after ten years of film it actually isn't better it's just you've managed to distance yourself from that moment but I suppose that the other side of that the contrast incidence is that you did not have great expectations of the television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice because you actually turned it down to start with oh I strenuously I was bombarded with pleas from everybody I knew not to do it because I was so wrong for it I had people saying I mean I had people saying please don't do it because I've always been in love with this character and if you do it'll change or I had people saying no you can't he's supposed to be sexy it's very odd if you battle it with something long enough you get involved without realising I still didn't see anything to play because the guy doesn't speak most of the time and that's one of the biggest stretches because anyone who knows me and you're beginning to gather now that's very difficult to shut me up part of the biggest stretch was how do you shut me up in off for six hours to play this guy and there was no she does not write men from the inside Jane Austen she she doesn't dare there no room there isn't a single dialogue in the whole of her cannon which depicts a conversation between two men alone because she didn't presume to know what two men would talk about when there's not a woman present and so I just thought this is a guy who stands and smolders for six hours and it'll drive people you know to despair and then I was about to say no when I realized that saying no meant someone else would get to do it and then I felt rather territorial about it that's what I've been tossing with this for whatever it was two months and the idea of somebody else taking it on just made me I just got a bout of jealousy about it well we're so glad that you did because we're now going to see from 1995 a moment when the television audiences across them in the nation was gripped at this stage and this is the point where mr. Darcy is about to make a declaration to Elizabeth it almost from the earliest moments of her acquaintance I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard which despite all my struggles has overcome every rational objection and might beg you most fervently to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife in such cases as these I believe the established mode is to express a sense of obligation I cannot I have never desired your good opinion and you have certainly bestowed it most a Twinkie I'm sorry to cause pain to anyone but it was most unconsciously done and I hope will be of short duration did you ever guess that mr. Darcy was going to kind of grow and become this this monster in his hit Sophie Avilan astonished at his longevity so know that you can't possibly predict it and I was i I just just met Livia my wife at the time we we were in South America which is really really is a parallel universe and I just came back to Italy and I wasn't in England when all this was happening so I only had my mom's word for it and you know bless her she's she's always been very supportive and telling me that everything's going very well so when she said that the role you just played has become a national phenomena and I said look I said well bless you Martin thing but Bridget Jones wanted to cause is mr. Darcy again isn't it but just of course what happened was with the Bridget thing sister because I did I was carrying this thing which I've been hugely misrepresented as being resentful about it I'm not remotely I actually love the fact that people engage so much as something I did that it last 15 years later I should I mean I should be so lucky really and I relish it really but I think you you have to know what to do with that and recognize that the baggage will be there and that rather than wishing it away that you could make use of it in certain ways and I think that humor is the best way to do that and that's what the Bridget thing was about well what goes to about Blake Morrison's memoir and when did you last see your father in which you play Blake so did you meet him before you played him no I met him during it and it's always rather terrifying because it's as we actors see the writers like God because you're your creator just walks in I mean you enter this strange devised universe in which you completely submit yourself to this idea that you this conceit that you're this other person and in the midst of that on comes your maker and we're I think as actors on the whole Wed Wed terribly in all of our writers but one of the things that makes the book a bit of a masterpiece and I think it really is and I think the film does justice to it is that it acknowledges all the the pain the negative pain of grieving over somebody I think the books that come out and try to sugar it and and and espouse some sort of bogus resolution don't really help people in the end well seem we're going to see is actually from the funeral where Blake challenges his aunty Beaty whom he has seen with his father over the years the thing is I do know something went on BT between you and dad and I know it was a long time ago and then I'm not angry I mean I was angry he is furious with him mainly but not anymore at least I don't think so but I would like to know the truth I mean I need to know the truth I think I go mad otherwise something you can't understand I couldn't oh yes yes I suppose so well man was never a very happy marriage to Blake and a sir patron saint of lost causes he saw without any consoled me I suppose I was lonely and he made me laugh I wouldn't have gone through the days without her that was consolation Blake what was it physical this that's important yes I think it is leave me something I can please play it is mine now somewhere in between this comes along the six hundred million dollar earning Mamma Mia no I didn't know this exam but it has topped something is it oh yeah I've reread done anything where in which I feel such a completely uncomplicated sense of satisfaction in the response that it's gone I don't enjoy watching films I'm in very much it's a grisly experience though the most actors will say the same thing but to sit and watch this group of skeptics this is what it usually was sit in a room and there will be some commercials out there who will have come out skeptical but I think that they probably should go and sort themselves out you sit there and the film begins and you see that this is the body language in the first five or ten minutes and then you see them begin to loosen up and then you see one shoulder sort of go and by Act two the you know the whole thing is to see of kind of bizarre mobility and then everyone's on their feet you know normally we see the film once for it twice and then you know we don't need to keep sitting through it any you go off and have dinner or something this is the one where I wanted to see it I loved seeing that happen I wanted to see that mean Amsterdam would happen in Berlin I would sit in the Stockholm I loved seeing that progress from an audience from snobbery to abandonment so I mean that's you know it doesn't I've been very fortunate in finding material which which feeds into completely different well that's an example then of that would be Michael Winterbottom Jennifer which she's another story of somebody grieving but this is the man whose wife has been killed in a car accident and he's looking after their two daughters so he takes them to Italy no this is such a naturalistic film but it makes one always wonder whether there was a set script to start with there was Marta is an extremely disciplined director and he has a script and a structure but he has a very unconventional approach he shot this film on a DV it wasn't even on HD there wasn't a camera that big there wasn't a light there wasn't a continuity person there was no security there was a crew of 12 there are no extras the streets were not shut off everybody you see who isn't one of the principal cast was actually somebody who happened to be walking through the streets in Canada at the time he does encourage departure from the script he doesn't do a take twice he's fierce about punctuality when you're on the clock you're on and you walk on at nine o'clock when you start acting particular when there's no setup there's no lighting whatever and around four o'clock you're off and he doesn't want any discussion after that you can't even reach him but in that concentrated time when you're on your you're on to an extraordinary you know it's you know if there's no peripheral vision during that period well let's see you here with Catherine Keener who plays a friend who is very keen to console and also offer advice about how the girls might interpret Alma [Music] listen I'm just I'm very um I'm so sorry about today really and it must be just incredibly hard for all of you they're beautiful kids did they have counseling yeah yeah I saw someone after the accident you're all very brave yeah we animus choice no it was not I need to get a bit okay I should go I just think that you know she feels very very guilty about about Marian and I think that she needs help maybe okay what you have there is it and you have the scenes of you with the friend when it comes to a single man I mean that is the film where you were largely on your own most of the time which must be very hard lonely it was I spent an awful lot of times I didn't know that any of the people I was working with very well a movie shot the whole we had 21 shooting days on single man and most of that time was spent pacing around the craft service table wondering whether if I eat another smarty it was going to affect my nude scene the next day you know I didn't you know you know if you have fellow actors it takes an awful lot of pressure off because not only are you bantering with your colleagues but you're also engaged with someone that's gonna be there when you shoot in front of the camera doing your job with you and most of that wasn't happening so when Julianne Moore showed up that was just three days and I had the most wonderful three days where the joy of having a fellow actor it was so great that actually getting on with the job and shooting a scene was an interruption interruption I mean I remember deeply resenting it when Tom Ford said action Tom Ford so the film to you because he was he was unproven as a director that say she was obviously very well known in the design world but that's not necessarily going to be in a basement for a year film don't underestimate my vanity in being approached you know and I opened up my an email and found that he'd bothered to get my email address and bypass all you know intermediaries and wrote beautifully eloquent accountants of the thing he wanted to do and then felt expressed a feeling that I was probably the only person who could possibly do it and we can't I was half yeah he had me halfway right there he had you at hello has to be used so hello wasn't yeah did half the work and when I met him I found this there's something oddly irresistible about him because he has a an extraordinary overwhelming physical beauty and he had just got off a plane and looked like he'd you know I couldn't have I spend eight hours in makeup I couldn't achieve he was utterly perfect and the way he pitched the film to me was perfect as well it was perfectly constructed it was eloquent it was fluent it wasn't that that got me though there was something there's a peculiar vulnerability about him that made me think that not something he flaunts but it made me think there was a dimension here that wasn't obvious well the bit the clip we're about to see is when Charlie who is George's friend invites him over and so this is the point where Julianne Moore turned up on set for three days and it is a relatively young light moment for a second charlie there's nothing wrong with your life you're just like feeling sorry for yourself it's one of you great pleasure and it's and it's not one of yours you're you're as pathetic as I am feeling sorry for myself is definitely not one of my great place but it's not one of mine either I don't like feeling sorry for myself one bit I tried to hold on to Richard for so long even it was obvious to everyone but me that it was over and I are now Claire has grown up I mean what am I doing here Joe tell me what you have plenty of friends you'll be fine yes I have friends but none of them need me and yes I have you and if you were such a goddamn plus we could've all been happy so let's talk about the King speech which he's about Georgia six from before he was just too sick than then when he has to take over on this room when his brother abdicates now this whole question at the film makes you over when you're watching it you start to feel physically really quite constrained yourself I mean that's a very so what kind of preparation could you do for that I do find this one a difficult one to answer because I didn't quite know there must have been about the sort of physiological effect not much actually no we it's not as if we were sitting around the people who had to expert expert ease on stammering I mean the anybody who is an expert on stammering will be an expert on dealing with it on overcoming it you necessarily cure it but but on battling it not on how to stammer we had all sorts of things we had to negotiate you have a script with a pace and a structure you have to finesse the humor and you have to address the dramatic flash points in the script and in the middle of all this you have something which is central to your craft which is your speech now if that is interfered with by representing an impediment the chances are you will interfere with all the rest of it that you can compromise the humor that you can compromise the pace to comprise the drama if there's banter if there's repartee if there's human expression whatever you do you are going to have to process it through that and that's unusual and in the heart of the film sort of crisp of the film the encounters that he has with the speech therapist played by Geoffrey Rush I mean was there a sense when you saw the script start with that these scenes were going to be so much though out of it so oh yes I mean we knew they were the heart I can't remem how long the shoot was but Jeffrey had to be dispensed back to Australia for some play after five or six weeks with us and we lost him and then in some ways it galvanized us too to look for the you know the the substance in what lay and the rest of the film but there's no getting away from the fact that it's the real MacGuffin if you like it's what happens between these two men and all that you will not see you and Geoffrey Rush please call me laughs I prefer dr. I prefer Lionel what'll I call you you know Royal Highness then and sir after that it's a little bit formal for here I'd prefer names Prince Albert Frederick Arthur draught how about dirty only my family uses sir perfect in here it's better if we're equals if every way equals I wouldn't be here I've been home with my wife and no one would give a damn well please don't do that I'm sorry I believe sucking smoke into your lungs it'll kill you my physicians say it relaxes the effect they're idiots they've all been knighted makes it official then what would you say is the most enjoyable aspect for you when it comes to acting and performing I suppose the collaborative nature of it really you know I'll I enjoy the color I'll let you enjoy collaborating so much that it actually affects my judgment when it comes to taking a job you know sometimes just think that's that's such a good great group of people to work with I didn't really care about any other ass I just want to get with that so I I'd say it's that really that's what that's what keeps tempting me back in acting how much do you become involved in forming a story and discussing where something might go how it might change relative to your reaction to material my first choice is to find a text that I can completely submit to I didn't like to mess with it it's not my first instinct there are some actors for whom that here's true they want to start to take it apart and customize it to themselves that's not mine I would much rather have Shakespeare something you can't question but I do medal and if you so enjoy the collaborative element of what you do are there collaborations approaches that you've not yet heard from four kinds of films that nobody's ever sent to you that you would really rather wish that somebody would I suppose some Antley sort of make a wish list but I I I suppose there are i I know that there have been times when I've read a script and think and thought actually nobody knows how could I be at that character yet they're still offering me this character there were the kinds of things I remember doing at drama school and we're imagining and fantasizing about day that never came my way give us a clue mmm [Laughter] not that collaborative okay no I'm not cooperative know that I suppose we are very locked into notions of class in this country and I I think I've been held to that far more than I think is it's inconsistent with my idea of myself and and what I feel that I could offer him and as I said I did not grow up speaking like this and yet I made a career out of it that's quite bizarre to me no one's ever asked me to speak in the accent that I spent my entire childhood speaking what we're looking forward to that Hampshire I don't sure anyone was very enticed by it but in the meantime thank you very much indeed for your laughing thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: BAFTA Guru

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Keywords: BAFTA, BAFTA Guru, British Academy Of Film And Television Arts (Award Presenting Organization), creative, career, film making, TV, gaming, actor, advice, movie, movies, movie making, colin firth, kings speech, colin firth bafta, a single man, pride and prejudice, bridget jones, kingsman, love actually

Id: RLr4TL6RqEc

Length: 29min 25sec (1765 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2017