Funny Colin Firth on Being in Love with ABBA Girls, Singing, Meryl Streep, Girl Power

before mama mia could you ever imagine yourself in a musical not really I I had started to quite like the idea I didn't think I had enough of a voice really to do a stage musical and you know I've seen actors who can't really sing to a perfectly good job in musicals because I think a lot of it so it's an acting job it's you know it's about putting a song across rather than having it in a perfectly beautiful voice but I didn't think it would come my way and I certainly didn't think I would ever be on record singing singing in a bizarre but but very discipline I was yes I thought why where do I fit into this I didn't know anything about it really i knew that if it contains the songs I've ever I knew that a lot of people had loved this show but it had a about a real buzz about it there was a sense of event about this film partly because Meryl Streep was doing it and the show it was such a phenomenal success and that there was an air of fun you know I think most people before I even read it was saying you you will enjoy yourself and the script I couldn't understand at all it was like reading algebra hey you know because it's it's not read it written to be reading Matthews you know it's it's song lyrics and stage directions and you know fragmented dialogue so I after I saw the show I was I was really excited actually to people but but did you have to sing do a test sing test before they didn't test me I'm they didn't test me I they they basically gave me the part if I wanted it and I said to do do you care if I can sing and fill a deloitte somewhere I'm sure you can see him I thought well this is either reckless or you know well you know something I don't but they did encourage me to sit with the musical director for a few minutes with a piano and just to find a key and I'm sure if it had been catastrophic I that we would have agreed to part company at that point but it was it was fascinating because I didn't know how I mean to sing you know I enjoy singing for my supper in the shower you know but I never found the voice that was mine you know if you want to sing that song was a Johnny Cash song I probably tried to sound like Johnny cat but this is an Abba song and I couldn't sound like that and these songs are the deceptive you know that these are beautifully crafted songs they have to be some well and so I felt a bit of a responsibility at this point yeah but I think you have a very good voice well you're very kind I hope you're impressed by your yourself I it's very hard to judge your own voice I mean if you ever hear yourself played back it's a difficult thing because you don't sound the way you think you sound it was a higher key than I imagined I would do but I think it was right for the song you know I like the song i think if you it really helps and also I found that accompanied myself on the guitar and I found my singing was a bit better if I played played it you know if I company myself rather than being accompanied by a piano and I think if you if you like a tune and you like what it's saying then it'll it'll hopefully bring something out is it living in a way to express your feelings and the thoughts in a song yes this is why I I started to think maybe doing musicals would be a nice thing to do I mean you know my my pretenses as a teenager was you know to be cool you can't do musicals or say you like a de in the 70s for you know for a guide everything had difficult or obscure bit more rock and roll maybe jazz something big can't be musicals and they can't be popular and as time went on I found the power in musical theater you know that I think the first one for me i went to see follies sometimes follies and it's quite dark material and it's very passionate and quite painful story you know day i watch these scenes on stage i went to see the game and there was one particular scene and I had remembered it his dialogue I had forgotten it it was a song I just remembered a very passionate scene between an old man and a young and that's when I realized that there are things you can do with a song with in a dramatic context that you can never do with with your speaking voice so yes I think that the I mean I would like to do more and I only had a little moment really I think I think about 20 bars on my arm what was your relation to ever before this well I I pretended not to like it because it didn't seem cool you know I was didn't appeal to my my pose as a rather self-serious teenager but this sounds fair I i was watching the eurovision song contest when they won Waterloo whatever year there was I 71 or something it was it was in England and so I saw I was watching it live then and so they were there in the background of my life through the 70s and ever onwards so they've been there whatever I said was thought and I think I I think I like this song you just didn't wear the t-shirt when you were 15 yeah because it was popular it was chart and I you know you had to be I was a snob about that kind of thing but stuff i was listening to his disappear and average still there and it still has this extraordinarily passionate yeah it kind of anything yeah it really animates people i think after nearly 40 years it's extraordinary yeah but it was a special view to meet yarn and been dancing for that it was it's one of the memorable moments I think if I were the sort of person who would write memoirs I think one of them mean the first meeting and the fear I had of singing for that you know because they're after all this time they they have an iconic status i can remember the images of all four of them from from the seventies and of course you know the ice teenage boy at a boys school and I was completely in love with the girls and and jealous of the boys and and here they were these two guys and I was singing one of their songs with that you know betty was on the piano and be understanding there and I went through the fear threshold and then suddenly once they approved of the song of the way I sang which they did obviously guys extremely happy and then suddenly flashed back to the 70s and thought my God if I'd had a crystal ball in 1975 you know and I could see myself singing with with Abbott I would have been in complete disbelief how do you look upon your character Harry I think you know i'm using something which i've been associated with a very long time which is the rather reserved english man but i think it's fun to play with that because this is about people freeing themselves in some way freeing themselves from their expectations and feeling from the thing they got trapped in and you know so button and in fact physically if you watch the film you first see me in a three-piece suit they wanted to put as much on me as possible so that as much as possible to Kim come off and you know it's inconsistent with this Mediterranean atmosphere I come out of the taxi no Pierce was already in a Sheraton yeah but I've got the tie and the waistcoat and then you see me on the boat and the jackets off and then you know gradually shorts and then the lighter and then eventually in the fountain he's free yeah and i think is a very very sweet man who's been trapped in a dull lifeless suburban business life you know he's we don't know much about him but he's clearly he's bored and he hasn't had an adventure in a long time and so this is the adventure and the discovery of you know this daughter that he always would have loved to have had and I so I think there's a sweetness in him but he's been buried in a indus terrible you know we clenched reserve quality not spontaneous not spontaneous and I think that's interesting if you look at the contrast stellan skarsgard he's his trap is the opposite the free spirit the man would never be tied down the man will always go off the lone wolf the frisbee and actually that's deprived him of intimacy in relationship so you know he goes he goes the other way and I think it says a lot for something that seems so light and has an air of joy and frivolity about it I think there's quite a lot in there really about escaping from convention you know that one of the you know that the happy ending that says let's not get married the the the single mother has always been yeah free without any any recriminations or judgment so you know I think that it wasn't something that I benefited from an hour analyzing very much at the time but watching of these things come across yeah what did you dream fathers have fun together we did yeah yeah a ton of our lives really it it was actually rather obscene to be paid to be having so much fun I think you know we'd have all paid to do this yeah and you know I didn't have a lot of responsibility i had my song to do i bet it was a holiday in Greece for me when I it couldn't have been we couldn't have been easier yeah this person called you the free shakes that's unusual the three chicks yeah three men are in the supporting roles and strong women and you're in a room I think that's exactly what we are I mean we are you know three rather tired Tory middle-aged bimbos you know who from the woman's point of view it's normally yes the convention is that you have a male protagonist and the woman is the love interest and you know her role is little sketch here and this time is completely the other way around and this is completely apart from Benny and beyond this is women's project I mean this was conceived off by a woman written by a woman and directed by a woman and the protagonists are female and which i think is a real case for men going to see this because they love it when they do and it's partly because it's a bit like accidentally staggering into a hen night you know having a little bit out of place and seeing you know girl power at its it is strongest and you feeling fascinated and perhaps a little bit afraid and realizing how they perceive us yeah and I think that it was you know that was one of the things that was the most intriguing about it but you know this is my campaign is to convince the guys this isn't just a girl's film this is something you more than anybody should be going to see you really what do you think is the secret about the success with this stage musical and now they've been like the music I mean it's more than anything it's the music I think that it's been brilliantly devised because it's not easy to string these songs into a narrative so I think Catherine Bennett did achieved an extraordinary feat to make a story that not only fits these songs but which make creating such a feeling of passion at crucial moments and an Philadelphia serious theatre director which is where that I think the finest that we have so it's all people seriously people at the top of their game you know and Marilyn and Christina and Julie this is serious you know people who are very very serious about their craft and with the power of this music which has been around for nearly 40 years now it's not just that the music so good it's the fact that we have collective memory associated with all of these songs as I said before you know they were they saw me through the sentences whether it was my choice to put on the turntable or not they were there I mean they're 9 number ones in that decade i think in britain a lot and they were there were a big part of life and now if you've got a film about love and sexuality in middle age and you want to tell that story with music to choose music that is the people of that age will all recognize from 30 or 40 years has such resonance you know because this story is about people that about their regrets and about unfulfilled ambitions and you know should I live my life differently did I make mistakes and then to have a song which was playing when you made your mistakes and when you first fell in love all got a divorce or word passing your exams or failing your exams or got punched at the discotheque it's suddenly unites everybody and I was in that resonance so I think it a lot of it is that but some of it is just the fact that you can think you've heard enough of dancing queen but then the first three bars come in context seal it and then everyone's on their feet again it has an amazing power to renew itself yeah you seem to be very happy about this I love this one I love it I love I fallen in love with the music again you know and i'm now out of the closet about it you know i sing it from the rooftops i think that it's just something I'm I will always be glad I did really

Channel: Colin The Firth

Views: 81,079

Keywords: Colin Firth, Colin, Colin The Firth, Harry, marriage, Mamma Mia, play, playing, music, musical, act, actor, sun, sing, dance, song, Meryl Streep, ABBA, Amanda, love, UK, US, Greece, queen, British, English, gay, gay man, young, beautiful, stage, performance, Youtube, video, interview, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, man, woman, girl, boy, island, NY, Broadway

Id: q4BFCwLl338

Length: 14min 14sec (854 seconds)

Published: Sun May 13 2018