Colin Firth and "The King's Speech

last winter the king speech dominated the oscars when it took home four out of the twelve academy awards it was nominated for including best picture best director best actor and best original screenplay the movie is based on the true story of george vi the father of the present queen of england george vi was a man who in the 1930s desperately did not want to be king he was afflicted nearly all of his life by a crippling stutter which stood to rob britain of a commanding voice at the very moment that hitler rose to threaten europe the story struck a nerve with audiences and critics alike as we reported last february just before colin firth won his first oscar for his critically acclaimed portrayal of george vi the story will continue in a moment did you like being king i think it would it's hard to think of anything worse really i mean it's uh i wouldn't change places with this man and i would be very surprised if anybody watching the film would change places with this man it's a perfect storm of catastrophic misfortunes for a man who does not want the limelight who does not want to be heard publicly who does not want to expose this humiliating impediment that he spent his life battling he's actually fighting his own private war he'd rather have been facing machine gun fire than have to face the microphone the microphone hung like a noose for the king who was a stutterer from the age of eight he was never meant to be king but in 1936 his older brother gave up the throne to marry wallace simpson a divorced american suddenly george vi and his wife elizabeth reigned over an empire that was home to 25 percent of the world population and like the george of over a thousand years before he had a dragon to slay radio when i looked at images of him or i listen to him you do see that physical struggle at that time when when this country his eyes close and you see him try to gather himself and it's it's heartbreaking the fact had to be among those listening was a seven-year-old british boy who liked the king had a wealth of words but could not get them out i was a profound stutterer i started stuttering just before my third birthday i didn't rid myself of it until i was 16 but my parents would encourage me to listen to the king's speeches during the war and i thought wow if he can do that there is hope for me so he became my childhood hero david seidler wrote the movie he'd grown up with the story but he didn't want to tell the tale until he had permission from the late king's widow known as the queen mother you sent a letter to the i wrote to the queen mother and finally an answer came and it said dear mr seidler please not during my lifetime the memory of these events is still too painful if the queen mum says wait to an englishman an englishman waits but i didn't think i'd have to wait that long why she was well she was a very elderly lady 25 years later just shy of her 102nd birthday she finally left this realm after the queen mother's death in 2002 seidler went to work he found the theme of the story in the clash between his royal highness and an australian commoner who became the king's salvation an unknown speech therapist named lionel logue the words that keep coming up when you hear about lionel logue are charisma and confidence he would never say i could fix your stuttering he would say you can get a handle on your stuttering i know you can succeed do you come in jeffrey rush plays lionel logue an unorthodox therapist and a royal pain what do i call you prince albert frederick arthur george how about bertie they say you can't make this stuff up and in much of this film that's true david seidler could not have imagined but his work would lead to a discovery that would rewrite history it happened when the researchers for the film tracked down lionel logue's grandson mark logue because the movie needed family photos to get the clothing right and you told them what i told them yeah i've got pictures i've got some diaries too his grandfather's diaries were up in the attic in boxes that the family had nearly forgotten when mark logue hauled them down for the movie he discovered more than 100 letters between the therapist and his king my dear logue thank you so much for sending me the books for my birthday which are most acceptable so british isn't it yours very sincerely albert as you read through all of these letters between your grandfather and the king what did it tell you about the relationship between these two men it's not the relationship between the doctor and his patient it's the relationship between friends we met mark logue at the same address where his grandfather treated the king and among the hundreds of pages of documents were logs first observations of george vi probably the most startling thing was the king's appointment card it described in detail the king's stammer which we hadn't seen anywhere else and it also described in detail the intensity with the appointment shall i see you next week i shall see you every day the king came here every day every day yeah every single day for an hour through the weekends through weekends you know he was so committed i think he decided this is it i have to overcome this stammer and this is my chance in the film the king throws himself into what looked like crazy therapies but in truth lionel logue didn't write much about his methods slowly exhale and down comes her royal highness all right buddy it's actually quite good fun these scenes are based on writer david seidler's experience and ideas of the actors we threw in stuff that we knew i mean somebody had told me that the only way to release that muscle and of course little did i realize that the particular lens they were using on that shot made me look like a galapagos tortoise even as they were shooting the film the actors read the newly discovered diaries and letters and worked them into the script the line at the end i found reading the diaries in bed one night because this is what i used to do every night when log says you still stammered on the w you still stammered on the w i had to throw in a few so they knew it was me it showed that these men had a sense of humor it showed there was wit it showed there was self-mockery and it just showed a kind of buoyancy and spirit between them the fact that he spoke on a desk standing upright in this little hidden room is something we found in the diaries as well you've redecorated log in reality he had to stand up to speak he had to have the window open some fresh air and he had to have his jacket off they are darling and that's a wonderful specific little eccentric observation that that came from reality one of the most remarkable things to come out of the logue attic was a copy of what may be the most important speech the king ever made 40 seconds of speech that gives the movie its name this was the moment when king george vi had to tell his people that for the second time in a generation they were at war with germany the stakes were enormous the leader of the empire could not stumble over these words you have the original copy of the speech that the king made to the people on the advent of world war ii yeah i have it right here on buckingham palace stationary what are all of these marks all these vertical lines what do they mean they're deliberate pauses so that the king would be able to sort of attack the next word without hesitation he's replacing some words he's crossing them out and suggesting another word that the king would find it easier to pronounce here's a line that he's changed we've tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences between my government he's changed that from my government to the differences between ourselves and those who would be our enemies we have tried to find a peaceful way out of the differences of the differences between ourselves between ourselves and those and those who are now who are now our our enemies enemy well done my friend thank you your majesty you know i'm curious have either of you snuck into a theater and watched this film with a regular audience now the only time i've ever snuck in to watch my own film i got quite nervous about it because i just thought it was embarrassing to be seen doing that so i i you know pulled my collar up and the hat down over my eyes and you know snuck in as if i was going into a porn cinema or something i went upstairs crept in settled in to sit at the back and i was the only person in the cinema that's how well the film was doing now it's a lot harder for colin firth to go unnoticed recently he was immortalized in hollywood pavement and brought along his italian wife livia they've been married 14 years and have two sons with the king's speech we realize that firth is one of the most familiar actors that we know almost nothing about so we took him back to his hometown in hampshire outside london he's the son of college professors but firth dropped out of high school to go to acting school but you don't have a new hampshire accent um no my accent has changed over the years it was a matter of survival so until i was about 10 i used to like that i remember i might have been on this street actually where i think the conversation went something like oh you want to fight and i said uh no i don't why not well because you'll win no i won't well will i win then well you might not and so you know we were trying to process the logic and i thought have we dealt with it now i mean do we still actually have to do the practical now we've done the theory he wanted us to see his first stage it turned out to be the yard of his elementary school where he told stories from his own imagination and at lunch times on the field up here the crowd would gather and demand the story they'd all sit around and say no we want the next bit did you have the thought at that early age this is what i want to do no not until i was 14. and what happened then i used to go to drama classes up the road here on saturday mornings and one day i just had this epiphany i can do this i want to do this he's done 42 films in 26 years most of them the polar opposite of the king's speech like mamma mia how hard was it to get you to do the scene that's used for the closing credits you know what that may be the reason i did the movie you have no shame i'm sorry that's if if one thing has come out of 60 minutes here's we have discovered that we've unveiled the fact that colin firth has no shame i am such a drag queen i'd you know that it's one of my primary driving forces in life if you you cannot dangle a spandex suit and a little bit of mascara in front of me and not just have me go weak at the knees from queen to king colin firth is an actor with wide range who had his best shot at his first oscar like george vi himself this movie wasn't meant to be king the king's speech was made for under 15 million dollars but the movie the director the screenwriter david seidler who made it happen and all the principal actors were nominated for academy awards jeffrey rush had won once before what advice do you have for this man who may very likely win the basker this year oh enjoy it it's not the end of anything because you'll go on you'll do a couple more flops probably you might even sneak into another film where no one's in the house but on oscar night stammering king george had the last word a lot of movies are based on true stories but the king's speech has reclaimed history go to 60 minutesovertime.com for a closer look at the stash of letters discovered in a london attic from king george vi to lionel logue sponsored by pfizer

Channel: CBS News

Views: 963,288

Keywords: 60, minutes, king's, speech, colin, firth, academy, award, discovery, oscar, scott, pelley, text, therapist

Id: aHTZWMr0xn8

Length: 14min 28sec (868 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 12 2011