Colin Firth NY Times Talks part2.wmv

conflicts with that and but on this occasion I realized because this I don't know most people haven't seen where the truth lies I think the figure of the viewing figures from mountain about three and there are more of you than that in this room but the character was one of a performing viewer of the 1950's which were distantly very very distantly based on a kind of Rat Pack Lewis and Martin kind of Dewar and we took it a long way from that and the Vince Collins character is someone who on stage seems like a civilized English gentleman it's as if Noel Coward had come to Hollywood or perhaps something a Peter Lawford but backstage we see the weaknesses and the corruption and the banality of the character and actually we see that I'm psychotic and violent and I'm a drug addict and a decided against so then we have never going it was a brilliant directory directed it said that is far more shocking and interesting if you are an English gentleman then 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 it has more impact and I think that he was right is that same baggage what what led you to - Tom Ford into a single man probably I didn't really know we'd met a couple of times I mean I didn't dwell on my baggage every time I get offered a role but it's no this time I didn't look at it as an opportunity to to reinvent myself or to I mean I didn't really think of things that way I'm not thinking strategically and when I when I work what medium think of you do you that you'd have to ask him okay you know and he all I can say is the fact he thought of me was irresistible to my vanity 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 hit makes films but it just flattery gets you absolutely everywhere and to open my computer in the morning and and see Tom Ford I didn't give him my email address I still haven't found out who did he explained himself in a very alec elegant and eloquent email so the reason he'd been looking at me in a very piercing and enigmatic way on our brief encounters over the previous 12 months was this following and he explained the project that he had in mind and I have to say that the meetings we've had were where they were a party and one was it apart him one was it a premiere and you know the Tom Ford gaze I mean you've you've seen it and you know behind the the fragrance counter but this time it was very specific and really quite intense and I really didn't mistake it for flirtation or you know or a come-on or anything it just it was it was inscrutable and difficult to interpret and this happened twice and this email explained everything and he said 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 you know a sense of the unexpected and the fact that Tom wanted to make a film at all was interesting to me it vary by the time I got to the end of the email I said it's very quickly this was not a vanity project that his choice of material suggested to me that this was something very personal to him and did you know the material before no no I thought I knew something about Christopher Isherwood that but I had no idea I bet he's even gone to LA quite frankly I just knew about the buy my stuff you know the the German period which anyone who has a sort of a cursory knowledge of initially knows and but no I didn't know anything about this and the idea that he what he his choice of material was a lonely gay college professor in 1962 who's decided to kill himself it didn't sound like an opportunity to show off his spring collection well yeah but I mean I think in some ways people 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 talked about baggage if you didn't know anything about Tom's history and you didn't know that he was a fashion designer and you didn't know that he'd been a photographer you would probably look at this first time filmmaker and say well 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 helped 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 if 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 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 the unfolds in one day but it really is an entire life lived out in a day with every emotion you can conceive of albeit within a fairly contained kind of carapace with 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 city of course of about 15 hours through a rage of frivolity hilarity lust regret irony you know adoration sentimentality and you know Tom to pick an actor and say here this was on your shoulders and this is my story as well because Tommy it was his he took it much further from you took it a long way from Christopher Isherwood really Christopher Isherwood did not have the concept of the suicide Tom introduced that again I'm not going to speak for him but I think that's something that's personal to him and I think there's something very 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 they do this was a quite a compelling combination of things you know Tom Ford decided to make a film he's got a reputation for a certain kind of brilliance or not a certain kind of brilliance on many fronts he he not only as a brilliant designer and has a vision he clearly has enough capacity to communicate their vision to get things done on a very large scale he also can run a fashion house and not just any fashion house and a major one he's credited with telling the entire fashion industry around he's also an utterly brilliant photographer he has 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 there's there's a lot of boxes that a lot of directors do not take quite frankly however many films they've made and 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 in a much more you know different kind of energy level you know well I couldn't tell as I said you can't definitively tell anything but I had a sense that it would have to be something like that this did not read as something that was plotting I know meaning who watch the film there's no way it's plotting its I mean that was that was something to be wary of in a way but I also don't really like plotting things I mean I did a film called Jennifer which in some ways this resonated with which is also bad grief and also how

Channel: Michele Acerra

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Keywords: Colin Firth, NY Times, A Single Man

Id: BaliLVvqmQg

Length: 9min 43sec (583 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2010