Funny Colin Firth on Wearing a Wet Shirt and Spandex, Being a Heartthrob, Singing ABBA

and while Brad got chummy with Pammy I was stuck with mr. Darcy and the wonderful meryl streep talking heartthrobs the Oscars and what it's like to sing ABBA songs with James Bond it's hard to know who the fans are most excited to see the world's most awarded actress heartthrob Colin Firth or the hot young newcomer at last night's Australian premiere of Mamma Mia in Melbourne they got all three and a movie full of ABBA songs to boot [Music] Meryl Streep's first Mamamia experience was seeing the hit show on Broadway I wrote a note to the cast of the Broadway show because I was so I mean I saw it right after 9/11 I took my ten-year-old and her birthday party along to kind of cheer them up and it absolutely did the trick and also it had just it was an infusion of joy for all for the whole city and so I wrote to all of them because you know they were not stars nobody knew who they were but I wanted them to know that it was a big deal what they'd done for us all what you say about it bringing joy to a to a city that was utterly devastated we're in no way in the same situation now but we are as a world doing it tough economically the times are tough and again a film like this you come out feeling so uplifted are we reaching out for this sort of film again now do you think well it could be that we are I don't know I think that ABBA's music has you're right it has at its center it's just sort of a good nature to it and something optimistic and know now that I know Benny and Buuren I see where it comes from there's it's just it's not cynical in any bone of its body Colin Firth's first Abba moment was watching their Eurovision Song Contest win with Waterloo live on TV when he was 13 and I have actually now sung Waterloo we're with Pierce Brosnan and Benny and beyond on the other side of the glass and it was quite a moment really one of those surreal moments in my life actually was thinking that saying having seen it at 13 years old in Brighton live on television and then sitting it singing it for Benny and beyond however many years later 35 years later and I and we when Pierce and I finished recording we went back behind the glass to have a listen then it was Benny's turn to say that was one of the most surreal moments of my last thing mr. Darcy in James Bond singing Waterloo but this is his first trip to Australia although he nearly made it here 14 years ago I was actually going to do Priscilla at one point you can leave that fusion to get everywhere it asks definitely at the time I think I was just newly a father and it just wasn't practical to be trying to climb Ayers Rock in stilettos when I had a small baby at the other side of the world so you've been clamoring to get into spandex in stilettos for some years then and it took a while to eventuate this has been probably I can retire now but it's not all spandex : also wears something that fans of the immortal BBC production of Pride and Prejudice will remember very fondly now in this film you again appear in a wet shirt is this now something you get written into your contract yeah well you've you've got me no cannot possibly to film unless they wet the shirt at some point but having made mr. Darcy his own he now must live with the consequences it's a fixture of my life that that that's something and I know that this is true of many actors that there's a certain thing a certain role over a certain period of their life that they answer for and actually I think we should be very grateful to have that because it's a reference point for us and rather than I think trying to shake it off I think no let it long may it run really because it does give me enough purchase on other things the other thing that happens to Colin Firth in movies is he loses the girl to one of the finds brothers in the English Patient rafe pinched his wife in Shakespeare in Love it was Joseph that does happen yet I've lost I mean this is it's been a while now true but there's those painful days behind me of losing a woman to somebody called Fiennes and I said Bristol as soon as I because I think possibly I might be working with one of them again and I immediately check the scripts he's not going to steal my woman somewhere it's not the finds brothers Colin has to compete within Mamma Mia instead it's Pierce Brosnan and stellan skarsgård or free play possible fathers to Merrill's daughter having them you probably don't recognize me and while meryl makes a pretty fabulous mom in the film i don't care if you slept with hundreds of men well I haven't slept with hundreds of men in real life she's even better you're obviously great mom you have you have four children and you've managed to mix that with the career ball out of jail yep precisely yet wait we haven't seen anyone on TMZ or or anything how have you managed that how have you how have you managed that oh it's uh scheduling you know but actually I have to say that my business that show business is kind of I don't know more accommodating to parents and at least I'm but I've been home a fair amount since my son was born 28 years ago and I have three girls as well and you know I you could call it being unemployed but you could also being full-time parent a full-time Herod who holds the record for the greatest number of Oscar nominations fourteen so far plus two wins it's serious Oscar talk around for you for this film does that still give you a buzz ah it's um I don't know I don't know what to say and because I feel like I have had my share of that on the other hand it never gets old you know that kind of oh man [Music] a truly fun film a cold wintry night in Melbourne kept appearances on the red carpet brief at last night's Australian premiere of the film Mamma Mia Meryl Streep and Colin Firth greeted thousands of stars and fans and stars of the stage show rather frightened of Benny and beyond would we've been told there were hard taskmasters you know and so - to come into the studio and meet these Swedish Swedish schoolmasters and have three days to her booked in the studio to sing a 3-minute song you know it was it was very intimidating really and the movie opens nationally today and as we mentioned earlier I did meet the all-singing all-dancing Colin Firth just briefly ten minutes very brief and will bring you the interview a little bit later on the morning we'll have more on those stories coming up - the girls in the office were drilling my girlfriends were squealing on the phone clearly Colin Firth has won some hearts but in a brave move the English superstar swept his sex-symbol persona aside and went high camp in Mamma Mia the movie it was a movie that had him rather nervous until he realized co-stars Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep were just as terrified so we swing your legs so that I can just sit on you thank you this one yes I mean I suppose I make use of a little bit of the old baggage you know to start off with I think you have in order to tell the story of a man who you know breaks loose you'll have to see him buttoned up so we we actually paced the Wardrobe a little bit so I arrived you know edge of the Mediterranean with a waistcoat it left I and all the rest of it you see it gradually so you know just gradually of the top button coming undone and then the tie coming off exactly so how do you prepare for a role as a gay sex symbol I don't know I don't think we went for gays sex symbol I you know prepare it I didn't actually do anything for the you know I don't think was anything to be done just to be gay I mean anybody could be gay you know anybody could be you know straight so I barely I thought about that element really I mean it's you can't I mean the whole territory of Mamma Mia is so camp anyway it's pretty hard to out camp Julie Walters and Christine Baranski yeah so it wasn't about that so I did no preparation at all except trying to get them find the right key to sing the damn song really and look you actually seemed really well looking very kind well I mean come on let's go somebody yesterday no I think piercings beautifully actually I think he's got a wonderful kind of Springsteen you know quality which I I rather envious and he's got a lot more hormones than I have no I it was dead that was the that was the scary thing was just had not just how you sink the had you sing an Abba song if you're not Abbott you know and and I went into you know when I met Martin the musical director I I was trying to flaunt my low notes and he said I think come on you know I can still write no no nice and he wasn't really happy with the song until I was way up there somewhere folk II kind of choirboy thing that came out last summer memories that remain that was the only single required preparation really was that that the gay thing came pretty naturally are you happy to say that or over the line comfortable to admit no it's fine by now listen you know I'm okay mincing lovey what have I got to hide you know I didn't have to be asked twice to put on the spandex Dominic Cooper admitted to having a little bit of a little bit of help in the speedo reach and so he's talking to coz I've heard him deny it as well and he's just realized he's like me he didn't you know he's not getting any sleep on this tour so he's you just can't lie anymore he's might as well come clean really well he's got you know I mean it the the he's got that for from my point of view rather depressing so in a 12 pack thing going on here with you there's a certain age pass which stuffing yourself into spandex becomes an ugly kind of spectacle and you you know it's very unkind to your conne to us really and you you kept bulges where you don't want them and not so much what you do and that's what I think so you just can't change was the last was the last same scary or was it liberating oh it was great I mean no it wasn't scary by that I mean this we filmed it at the end so but we've done our worst but that was done at the end it was actually done at the end and there was a lot of debate as to whether to do it or not the whether the studio would pay for that it's not part of the narrative and whether it was worth having you know because the show ends like that yeah if you can seekne theatre there's a kind of surprise coda to the whole thing where the guys come on in exactly that way and I I thought what what's the point really of having done this if we don't get to put those boots and those frocks on we've been measured for them but it was a very expensive day of shooting we've heard stories from some of the other stars about their any beyond moment what was yours oh it's a no it's an ongoing moment actually I mean because you know they're around now we watched the film and there they are still and there's always this moment of Ike you know they're looking at me singing and I hope I'm not letting them down Stalin was just as frightened off them as I was pissed we all met with Stalin and Pearson I had our I've been in peel moment together and I showed up in that studio wondering you know what with a three-minute song to record and three days booked to do it and I thought what are you gonna do to me in those three days it's a song last three minutes am I going to be in floods of tears the whole time while you you know you throw the manuscript on the ground in a rage and I'm gonna be here at ten o'clock at night on Friday still and you know Benny bjørnar they are known to be hard taskmasters and they care about their work and then I looked at Brosnan and you know I saw these spirals of fear in his eyes and then scars go came in and it was the same and so we were brought together really by by blind terror so you were absolutely popping your pants we were but then you know this the unity that's brought around by adversity and fear meant that you know we were like the Ovaltine ease around the mic on half an hour and just ready to take the show on the road Feeny's got having it there for a while do you remember the Ovaltine I really do sisters or something you know no it was and and there was a great relief really to being through that and then there was another been a moment when Pierce and I a few weeks later had to come in and sing Waterloo to pre-record it together and thinking I was watching Eurovision in 1974 when this thing won I was 13 and now I'm standing here singing it in front of Benny and Bjorn and it's a very bizarre moment and we went back behind the glass to listen to it and Benny said very surreal for me to be listening to Waterloo being sung by James Bond or mr. Darcy five years later oh isn't it great what a magical moment Dean did you find yourself during the shooting I mean it talked about fantastic locations but did you find yourself kind of looking at the cast around you in this amazing location and thinking you know life's pretty bloody good really well i sat with a game with Pearson's tell and I'm on a ship at one point looking out at the Mediterranean they and they said dude do you ever feel overpaid and that's the closest I've ever come to being thrown overboard sure because actually the producer was standing with his calculators you know yeah ready to rearrange things but yes it seems really positively indecent that we were being paid to have that experience is there not that fear that you think oh god I could blow it yes I mean it was more than a fear it seems like a complete certainty I mean every sort you know we being able to do this at all depended on a certain degree of abandoned and we relished that and it was fun and the wardrobe choices helped because you have to play up to them yeah and there's no way you can be clinging to your dignity whilst you're wearing that stuff and there's something about ABBA songs as well that just we've all got so much association with them whether you like them or not that they've been there for 35 years and there's this kind of strangely unifying party spirit that comes along [Music] any romantic interludes over the years based on Abbott's well probably I think I've dancing he was playing when I've got first got punched at a disco I mean they don't just accompany the nice moments that you know and they they're there as a part of the soundtrack wherever you were for a very long time but I do remember thinking you've got these moments of abandon and then these moments just afterwards where we'd look at each other and go if you've got your next job but you know we're steady staring into the abyss that what have we just done so right but you know what I I just loved that really yeah there was a kind of reckless suicidal joy in it all you know and the whole thing the wheels come off and fine well I have it it's fantastic and I hope it does it very well around the world good luck with it all lovely to meet you thank you I had a good sport absolutely charming man absolute gentleman and he got all of the jokes about the girls in the office and you know and sitting on his lap and yeah it was really good really a good sport about it and and what can I must admit I totally took my hat off to him because after doing that many interviews he was still there and he was still answering the questions enthusiastically really good bloke he's one of the nicest stars I've ever met can you imagine these guys they sit there and as you said you know they do a hundred interviews across two days or something about that and 99 of them are asking the same question no no just go haul anything new anything new it was it was terrific what's up

Channel: Colin The Firth

Views: 30,227

Rating: 4.8701301 out of 5

Keywords: Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Colin The Firth, Mamma Mia, Mamma Mia 2, Meryl, Darcy, Harry, wedding, pride, gay, Pride Prejudice, Mr Darcy, Mark, Bridget, love, play, playing, video, YouTube, music, ABBA, sing, song, funny, cute, sexy, UK, US, Greece, Australia, man, woman, girl, dance, fun, Amanda Seyfried, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, joy, sea, boat, direct, fight, action, musical, Broadway, guy, spandex, Waterloo, awesome, gay man, Christine, island, acting, Jeremy Irvine

Id: ZIqnw2itHic

Length: 17min 41sec (1061 seconds)

Published: Fri May 11 2018