Colin Firth on Mr Darcy, Language, Mark Darcy, Shakespeare and How Much of Him Is in a Character

[Applause] there are very few scenes of the history of motion pictures that have a name this is called the Ponzi it's been honored in Channel Four's top 100 TV moments of all time when you shot it did you have any idea that you were about to make it no you know what it's a testament to the contortions of a viewers imagination that that scene is remembered the way it is because I read stuff about this transparent which clinging to these chiseled contours I didn't have chiseled contours and as you can see the shirt isn't really that transparent no it was a trick of storytelling which imposed itself onto all the physical attributes North American actors are sometimes hesitant to undertake the classics for a single reason and that reason of course is the speech you've spoken of the way in which the language of a work like Pride and Prejudice informs the role would you tell us how it works for you it informs your body it's an amazing effect we are utterly as actors as creatures are dependent on language it's nothing more beautiful than taking phrasing syntax poetic ideas concepts which would naturally be out of your intellectual reach and owning them when I was going to trauma school everybody was enthralled with DeNiro they you know we still are but that was the period when Raging Bull had just come out and it was very interesting to see what language did to people because nobody at my drama school really wanted to do Shakespeare or any of the classics they just wanted to say you've a wife you a lot of us felt freed up by trying to sound like we're from the Bronx because they didn't just say you know you're talking to me they their arms started to move and their shoulders went and that probably never happened to them before because they didn't speak that way I ran it appears prose and you was so I mean I was stared into you know spirals of terror when I did to do his eyes you know when Gwyneth Paltrow was in that chair we talked about another remarkable film called Shakespeare and I [Applause] it won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture who wrote it Tom stop up as anyone who has spent as much as an hour on a movie set knows the screenwriter ranks slightly above craft service in the pecking order and a screenplay could be safely ignored or altered was that the case with Stoppard and Shakespeare in Love I suspect not Tom stopped out his Tom Stoppard and there is nothing quite like that in every page that comes off the press has magic dust on it here is what stop words words sound bite on the lips and in the hands of two very gifted actors your father was a shopkeeper your children will bear arms and I will recover my fortune that is the only matter under discussion today you will like Virginia yes fortune eyes in my plantations new tobacco beetle only four thousand pounds to fit out a ship and put my investments to work I fancied tobacco has a future we will not stay there long three or four years twice Nick was your eyes no your lips will you defy your father and your queen the Queen has consented she wants to inspect you that Greenwich come Sunday you submissive modest grateful and brief [Music] [Applause] we've enjoyed our time with Gwyneth on this stage what does it like to work with her well doesn't everyone want to be looked at like that by a woman yeah especially a woman who looks like a screen you have played two characters named Darcy the second time was in a charming film called Bridget Jones diary that was not a coincidence know how the world seemed to have a very strong memory of Darcy as I went around my business and Helen Fielding the creator of Bridget Jones's Diary it appeared as a supposed column in the independent newspaper yes although Bridget was a fictitious figure the things she would comment on in her diary were really contemporary events there were things that were actually happening and when Pride and Prejudice was running that became one of the events and the focus was very much on mr. Darcy and so I drew her focus quite a bit out of all of this came this kind of strange blurred of somebody called Mark Darcy who appears as as the the love interest in a story which does as you will know loosely parallel the story of Pride and Prejudice since you're Darcy one inspired Fielding to create Darcy to no question how did you approach the character did you create him as you would create any other character I just went around again and played him you know very much as I played Darcy mount one how much of Colin Firth goes into any character that you play as I've pulled it off it has to be quite a lot it may be rearranged you it may be you know some small neglected aspect of your your character which you then develop and you know emphasize for the sake of your character I've started off thinking I'm not this guy and ended up thinking I'm every bit this guy here is Colin's contemporary mr. Darcy trying to deal with a very contemporary Bridget Jones I don't think you're an idiot at all I know elements of the ridiculous about you your mother's pretty interesting and you really are an appalling ly bad public speaker and you tend to let whatever's in your head come out of your mouth without much consideration in the consequence I realized that when I met you at the turkey curry buffet that I was unforgivably rude and wearing a reindeer jumper that my mother had given me the day before but the thing is what I'm trying to say very in articulately is that in fact perhaps despite appearances I like you very much apart from the smoking and the drinking and the Vulcan mother and the verbals are only I like you very much just as you are [Applause] Renee told us about her anxious efforts to master Northamptonshire accent how do you think she did she never dropped the accent you know well you would call it an accent right and so I never heard the the American sound until the movie was over and we happen to be on the same flight the next day to LA the next day after shooting was wrapped and I ran into a Texan and it was quite bizarre she looked like Renee but I just thought do I know you yeah love actually consists of ten stories yours revolves around language or more accurately two languages English and Portuguese both of which you are ultimately required to speak more or less how much Portuguese did you have to learn it's good to learn to speak it badly yeah that was a real effort yeah how much did I learn if you do a word count on the length of that scene that's how much I learn is that it yeah how many languages do you speak to and they are English up to a point and Italian how do you happen to speak Italian as your second language my wife is Italian we met on a film set in Colombia and I didn't speak a word of Italian I had quite a lot to prove really because you know her parents were delightful people weren't exactly overjoyed at the news that she had met someone who a was an actor B was an Englishman C pneumoniae is her senior had a child and didn't speak a word of her language it didn't sound like a huge a you know positive package really right so I couldn't fix a lot of those things but the one I could immediately get to work on was the language so you know Love Actually was in some ways that were bizarre parallel to to my own life is she present she would you kindly introduce Serge is Divya right here would you stand up [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you have said about Mamma Mia it was quite terrifying because the guys in this film were really out of their comfort zone with the singing thing does that include you oh yes as most people in the public know that all the singing musical films is pre-recorded how much time did you have to spend in the recording studio actually not that much because whatever people think of my singing voice I had fortunately had two fans in the form of Benny and Bjorn from ABBA who liked it we went into the studio and I ran into pierce brosnan who was so far I mean I've stared into you know spirals of terror when I looked into his eyes and stellan skarsgård who was in a kind of rictus rigid fear and and we stood around that microphone after a while we just sort of I mean there's nothing more bonding really than blind terror one of the things Mamma Mia was notable for was the unexpected presence of Meryl Streep you of course played one of the possible fathers of her child did you enjoy working with Meryl oh yeah I really think there's something majestic and and extraordinary about what she's capable of and when you see it when you're in the same room with her it's like looking at close-up magic you know you think I'm watching something completely real happening yeah I don't know where it comes from and every take she does is freshly minted in 2009 Colin won the Best Actor honor at the Venice Film Festival and received richly deserved nominations for Golden Globe Screen Actors Guild and Academy Awards for his portrayal of the title role in a single man and what kill you to the role of George Falconer the role didn't come first in terms of what grabbed me it was Tom Ford the fact that he approached me appealed to my vanity and never underestimate that as a way straight to an actor's heart and you know all this sir you don't have to confine it to her a cute I'm sure I was terribly compelled by Tom I didn't doubt him but we took that empty space in silence that script was full of it silence can be torture it can be aggressive it can be terrifying or it can be blissful and beatific and serene and I was a little afraid of it I think and that went from something I was afraid of to something that was enticing and exhilarating and I thought don't throw away this adventure you just gotta jump in and then he was the character I don't think I've ever felt such such tenderness towards a character you're about to see an remarkable example of how much can be conveyed in silence as you had 20 years earlier at the apartment zero you played a gay man implicitly then explicitly now times have changed but how much in this riveting scene George learns that the man who has been his partner for 16 years has been killed in an auto accident finally you know it's been raining here all day I've been trapped in this house waiting for you to call I'm sorry I must have the wrong number I'm calling for a mr. George Falconer I'm sorry I was expecting someone else yes sir you have indeed called the correct number huh man help this is Harold a curly I'm Jim's cousin oh of course yes good evening stack no there has been a car accident an accident there's been a lot of snow here lately and the roads have been I see on his way to town Jim lost control of his car it was instantaneous apparently huh it happened late yesterday but his parents didn't want to call you you see doc they don't know that I'm calling you now but I thought that you should know thank you [Applause] [Music] how did you and Tom Ford shoot that scene there was nothing Tom had said nothing in the stage directions about the level of emotion what happened subsequently there's nothing about tears or no tears it just then you know you I think he just puts the phone down and they put the phone down and basically I was still in the moment and then I noticed he wasn't saying cut and then I realized this was an invitation to completely submit to this silence that tom was offering me and he let the magazine roll out I think was about ten or eleven minutes and when the camera just went and no one said cut there was a lot of silence noise I walked into the next room was a decade and to my immense surprise they had the hankies and and I was that okay was that okay and Tom said well trying to do again and of course oh you mean I've got to get back to happy you know and so we did it three times it's really one of the most exciting things that I think I've ever been asked to do anyway the last phrases that stick in my mind I I must go on I can't go on I'll go on it's no more than that in a parade of remarkable films and performances we arrived at what may be the most remarkable of all and that of course is the King's Speech Cleveland is a monarchy and you've been called upon to play its monarch did you have any qualms about undertaking the role of someone whom they think these people know and whom they esteem yes I mean I did have krons but I think most actors would agree that that qualms are quite enticing yes you know if there's something that carries risks then there's some mother there's always an abiding voice that says go there miles of footage of him did you make any effort to mimic him I did study him it was more to do with what he could tell me about what it was like to be him what was going on when he appeared in public when he spoke in public we talked at the beginning about characters being revealed through the way they negotiate their obstacles that was what I was looking for you know a man speaking publicly hits a wall he makes a couple of attempts at it and he gathers himself and he closes his eyes and he goes into what must be an unimaginable conflict to try to find a way to come out and I could see the externalization I could I could see the jaw going and the neck that tells me that there's a boxing match going on the side of this man's body grows and these involuntary sounds would come from him and in front of everybody you know so you're the mask is off you're so exposed and to see him go through that and then climb out of this appalling silence and that's an appalling silence and into the world of words again where it was just duty he was just carry on yes at the end of Beckett's unnameable that the last phrases that stick in my mind I I must go on I can't go on I'll go on it's no more than that it's not any more heroic than that it's just that's the human condition people in the 1930s behave differently from us now certainly the British Royals don't behave quite like the people they rule this film is pre-eminently about the divisions of class as this scene reveals calm Ilana 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 George about dirty only my family used to say 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 it down well please don't do that I'm sorry I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you my physicians say it relaxes the effect they're idiots they've all been knighted makes it official then my castle my rules [Applause] [Music] that times the King's Speech is a two-hander between you and and Geoffrey Rush I'd like to know what it's like to act with that man aside from it being you know exhilarating to to work with someone who has a strong you know a sense of text and and is constantly questioning and is is a kind of workaholic really he also liked he just basically relished play as much as he relished work and as soon as we got to work I mean Tom Hooper Jeffrey and I we're in the in the bowels of a corporate hotel in London trying to anatomize this thing with you know coffee and biscuits in front of us the scene you've just shown what's the first thing we did and it's a very interesting thing to start with the baptism of fire really if you shoot 10 minutes of your movie in a day that you you're committed you can't just suddenly change that right and it established my relationship with Geoffrey I mean that scene I think is a three out play really it contains so much intense the entire conflict of this film and of the man how is he going to manage this without surrendering everything he has been brought up to believe he is entropy

Channel: Colin The Firth

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Rating: 4.85567 out of 5

Keywords: Colin Firth, Colin, Colin The Firth, funny, sexy, cute, fun, talk, star, show, Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia 2, Mamma Mia Here We Go Again, Harry, Darcy, Mark, pride, gay, gay man, Pride Prejudice, man, woman, love, boy, girl, young, beautiful, actor, Oscar, play, playing, game, film, movie, comedy, drama, thriller, action, fight, scene, Kingsman, Kingsman 3, music, musical, song, sing, UK, US, American, British, English, Italy, Italian, Portuguese, Portugal, child, family, Lily James, Meryl, dance, dancing, dress, suit, Bridget Jones, fashion

Id: Hel1FJHxEMc

Length: 22min 2sec (1322 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018