Colin Firth's King in KING'S SPEECH

okay here we are with okay here we are with Colin F an Oscar nominee last year for his fantastic performance in a single man yes yes and now uh they're talking Oscar again and everything else they can throw at you for this fantastic performance as the king in the King speech and of course he doesn't start out to be king birdie is the second son he's supposed to be what is it the Duke of he is the well he becomes the Duke of York the Duke of York yes that's something his father confers on him at a certain point in in in his adulthood that was a you know that was a gesture from his dad um who is the king who is the king yes um and uh no this is a man who just does not want the job um he has you know the film touches on the childhood and why he's uh so mortified by any idea of public speaking or any really I mean he just likes to live in the in the in obscurity um he you know he's not the shrinking apologetic figure that he might seem to be to many people he was he was desperately shy of course he had the terrible stammer but he also played uh he got a long way in The Wimbledon finals he was a sportsman he um very enthusiastic naval officer he had health problems and couldn't didn't last long uh and in service but um you know he's quite a complex character and because his brother who was first enlighted to the throne was so charismatic and attractive and popular uh I think a lot of historians have rather lazily when I say historians I mean some of the biographers have rather lazily um characterized him as the dull witted brother uh which couldn't be farther from the truth it could not now we see the title The King speech you mentioned it's his stammer and his wife after many unsuccessful attempts finds him this very eccentric Australian who realizes it's not just the speech impediment that you're talking about but it's the person you've got to work on it's like therapy in a way I mean psychoanalytic therapy and it so we have a whole contrast between an aristocrat who is not used to relating to Ordinary People he has got a temper and um then the King speech is a double meaning because he has to rally the troops when he does become King George II as the nation is going to fight Nazi Germany and try to defeat Hitler against horrible odds so it's a wonderfully uh uh multi-layered story that you're telling here how important knowing that in America the United States anyway maybe Canada is different but Colin nobody here really knows who King George II is in Britain is it a whole different thing and and we don't either okay you know I mean it depends who you're talking to I mean there there'll be people who have have not know more about this part of History than others there'll be people who are more concerned with the Royals and what they do than others but I would say most most uh most English people most British people of my generation and younger would know either nothing or little or as little as the Americans would and in fact I would say I'd go as far as to say unless unless there you happen to be particularly sympathetic to the monarchy um we are as far removed from them as you are and know as little about what they do or don't do so how did this story appear when did people actually find out about this great relationship he had and is the guy the speech therapist that Jeffrey Rush Plays is he Lionel log yes he is lion log uh we you know we stuck as close to historical accuracy as we were able to um you know there was very little information about CU he he seemed to disappear somewhat from history and the information that flows out of the palace uh is non-existent so you know David seidler our writer did a miracle of a job in writing a speculative piece based on what you could know lot a lot of which is secondary information you can't get your research directly from the raw family so you rely on letters and secondhand information and people who might have known members of that family and then we found this extraordinary Treasure Trove of the log Diaries I don't know if you know about this but no well this this showed up right around the time we were filming I think David had known about their existence some years before but um we found the loges and found log's grandson said I've got these and these were Diaries and documents and letters and and I mean it was like the Dead Sea Scrolls I mean this was this magical Treasure Trove of information and you were in the middle of production yeah so did everybody say let's stop for a week and reconsider well we didn't stop for a week but we reconsidered I I things that really struck me as to much to David seidler's immense credit um this stuff chimed with what he'd written I mean I I found that these were the same guys so the intuition was right it was absolutely right and and and some of the dialogue was was scarily uh similar so log didn't bre breach confidentiality rules I mean he didn't write um anything that was said in the therapy sessions uh a few things he did he commented he made some medical notes early on the flabby tummy there's a line in the movie and that was a note about the first meeting that something he noted about Bertie um there's also a line in the film where log says you still stamed on the w and the King says well I had to throw in one of two so they'd know it was me that was found I found that in the Diaries and said please can we have this in the film great line well that was said by those two men and it gives you a wonderful sense of of connection to the people we're playing particularly when we know we can have so little else you know I loved uh hearing the the lonol log character say no baby is ever born a stammerer which goes to the whole idea that it's some kind of psychological trauma how does an actor play this without I mean you do it so naturally but to play a stammer is that a hard thing to do well yeah it's not the easiest thing in the world to do um I was very worried about get it being authentic um because there are people who really do uh live with it and I think it they it's it's something that causes tremendous suffering and if it's you know it's not often that you know actors are given some are made so aware of the of a sense of responsibility you know because frankly if something isn't represented very often in film and it isn't uh it's if it is it's usually to to marck it exactly it's a karmic relief almost yeah and it's I think it's it's it's something we need to think about that there's there's still a disability out there that somehow it's legit it's legitimized to to pasti and and uh you know you you don't get to do that really anymore and uh so you know it has been used for other I mean you know there's the brilliant performance by Brad Dorff and uh one FL of the cooker Nest there was a brilliant performance by Derek jackob also playing an unwilling Monarch who is placed you know call him a monarch but you know the the emperor n Claudius right um but it doesn't address the stammer as the issue itself it doesn't this is one of the first stories as far as I know that's ever been put to film which addresses how debilitating and how traumatizing it is I thought well you know I I I would I I've got to go as far as I can to make this authentic um otherwise I'm really going to be I think letting quite a lot of people down um and so I yeah it was you know I was very aware of that and um you know it's uh when you say it's a psychological problem I've I've I've I've learned that it it isn't necessarily I I I don't know exactly what it is but I excuse me I spoke to um the head of the British stammering Association a couple of weeks ago okay and he said no that is a strong research has shown there is it's a neurological thing that they're so children are so whatever I don't know where it comes from or when it starts and you know there are a lot of things that don't start at Birth but develop a little bit later on okay um but this thing something's happening to parts of the brain which can be physically observed okay uh which are not caused by a psychological thing that they are causing the thing now I'm not an authority here I've just had a crash course in this um now did you now I didn't asked him sorry does that mean Lo's on the wrong track trying to psychoanalyze this thing and he said no because psych you know the therapy helps you come to an arrangement with it right now what about the idea of taking this role knowing that this is the father of Queen Elizabeth our current queen that she is going to see this movie at some point is there any kind I'm not certain she's going to see it but um yes you're aware of it of course one is is uh conscious that any playy you're playing has living relatives I'm not going to pretend that the fact that this one happens to be the rigning Monarch uh uh is something to overlook but I I I would say I'm pretty much I'm I'm pretty much as concerned what log's family think okay and we've already had some feedback from them because they all came to the London screening at the F Film Festival the grandchildren

Channel: filmsteve3

Views: 89,671

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Id: AfheuFM1Bi8

Length: 9min 47sec (587 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 09 2010