Colin Firth NY Times Talks part5.wmv

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 how holy revelations are all completely and utterly mundane everyday things the sunset which looks like a vision of paradise is just smog the most beautiful face he's ever seen in his life is the hustler outside the liquor store I mean I know he happened to cast us 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 know the sunset wasn't really that red and the sunset was smog by I mean it's you know it's pollution it's but and if we went back there that wouldn't be you know we heat the hustler outside the liquor still probably wouldn't have been played by Kron kata arena you know who is a supervisor he would just look like any other hustler outside liquor store I only know he's a supermodel because I looked at his eyelids and he was in a film no but but basically I think that said 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 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 the Iranian film taste of cherry I haven't seen because it's it it's similar yeah well the very different style but the concept is because also someone who wants to know well I mean listen Dennis Potter that gave the most really almost painfully poignant series of interviews as he was dying that is part of the great English writer as he was dying of cancer he basically decided he decided to to discuss his illness and and the process of dying publicly and he talked about flowers I mean there's a mint my George sees a rose and again that's he knows in his mind that's the last rose he'll ever see so it's more than just a rose you know it's it's a spiritual experience and talk about being in the present you know this is a man who despises the president who certainly 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'd seen the blossoms i mean this is just a memory something 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 esteems that I'd ever seen and I I'd never forgotten that I mean I thought that came 15 years I think before we shot this film but when I read the script some of that came back to me the weather it was about the way a woman wears her hair or the perfume that she's wearing or the wear dogs is smell or the way that just a young boy's face looks and he's not trying to have sex with this guy or the way a child looks on this particular day a child he's seen every day of his life 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 people ask me is the film depressing you know it's about a man who wants to die I think that you know we we shall be so lucky to have a day like that when people mention the film I find they number one they talk about your performance and number two they all talk about the same scene which is the scene with the telephone you know I just did the guy acted the script I mean Tom pointed a camera at the chair and you only had 21 days did you do that over and over or is that an early take that was that was the day I was talking about where prop 8 passed and it was also the day that Barack Obama won the election in this country and there was general euphoria and I shared in that and so I was feeling pretty happy actually in fact just as we're about to go for take the phone guy took off his cans and played McCain's concession speech and and so we were kind of you know we didn't know each other very well that was about the fourth day of the shoot the fifth dare thing and we were just you know beside ourselves with relief and Tom basically I think the magic that he has as a director is that he loves space for things to happen even though there is no time something I touched on earlier the illusion of freedom when there really isn't that many the illusion of time when actually we don't have any 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 not at all it was just the dialogue and then it cuts to I think my running to Charlie said who are you talking somebody or did you not even I was talking to Chris Weitz the producer he was on the other end of the phone he'd be great job it's a different actor subsequently and well I tell you what happened he was a very unusual experience in that I just I acted the scene it's a very it's let me just give 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 access 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 roll camera quickly and that's what would you like to do one of the things when you read a script that actually where your heart sings one inside naked man on bed which is how this script open and the other is you know George picks up the phone perfectly happy Chat Chat Chat bad news terrible news you've got to end the scene 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 know I actually thought there wouldn't be any tears here I thought this is you just hear the news you kind of numb and then we cut to a scene later of devastation so I didn't have any plans for it and I don'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 like 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 a film to roll out I think it took about it felt like ten minutes I think thank you somebody said it was 11 minutes and sure and I know one said cut them the the magazine just went rolled out and so I knew we were done they went in the room the only people in the room with the camera operator in the Sun look over the boom line the others were in another room watching a monitor magazines rolled out we didn't and I went into the next room and they were all emotional thank everybody and then no Tom didn't really say anything he just said well let's do that again they put another magazine of film and we did all of it again so the tricky thing really was having to go back to happy to start this to start the scene so it was like picking up the phone oh I've been waiting for your call all day it's been raining you know how he would say and then just go through the journey again and then he let the magazine roll out again and then he did it again then he put another magazine on so we had three of those and then he did a shot from the side

Channel: Michele Acerra

Views: 8,925

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Colin Firth, NY Times, A Single Man

Id: T5ghaPmkxJc

Length: 9min 35sec (575 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 20 2010