Gorgeous Colin Firth Talks Father-Son Relationship, Valmont, SNL and American Accents

he may deny it because he's modest but Colin Firth never seems to make a bad movie at least not one to my disliking his latest is a case in point despite its somewhat clumsy title it's called when did you last see your father a poignant memory play that touched me deeply nice to see you again as to see you how do you do this you have great agents I've never seen you in a film I haven't liked and not just cause of you ice I can't do that I try to make them as bad as possible they survive me this is I suspect autobiographical to an extent based on emotions that not only may have happened to the author of the director but also toots too many of us that you look back on your relationship with your parents in this case your father and it's wistful and its melancholy but it's not all a downbeat film am i right not at all I think that it does deal with death and it's not the most advised pitch to give to a movie this is a movie about death even though death appears in so many films I think this is one of those honest looks at deaths as a reality and given that it's the most natural thing in life really it's the one great inevitability I'm surprised how rarely it's addressed unflinchingly in this way but it's also about parents expectations for their children I mean I'm lucky and that my son does what I do through his own choosing I didn't push him to it but in the story here Jim Broadbent your father wanted you to be a doctor and you went off to be a writer which is always an uncertain way to make a living and he taunted you and maybe that was his strange way of showing love I think so I mean I'd be like me be close to me yeah you know it'd be like me so I can understand you and that's the something quite narcissistic about that but I think there's a lot of narcissism in family love you know I want I want to love you the way I want to I want you to I want to own you and perhaps in a way you know one of the traits that I like about a lot of your movies is you're always looking for love you have an everyman quality about you you can play the dashing leading man but you can also play the schnook who's been dumped and you always look and look and look at Love Actually at me go to Italy did you try to find her an ultra any guy who's dated women is always some fun at one time or another most probably and you always identify with that you know do you call on your own background that would happen d well not specifically although I have to say there was a case of art imitate life imitating art a little bit whichever way around look at it with love actually because I I did meet an Italian woman and I did learn her language as part of the courtship and so in some ways the the film really was representative of something happened to me only coincidental you're coming in Mamma Mia right where you like that's a quick Mamma Mia absolutely good link yeah yeah now that is that that is such a bizarre you know change of pace really after something like when did you last see your father they might kind of makes your head spin well that's the story of your career I mean you never do the same thing twice sometimes when the part could easily be Americanized you stick to being an Englishman yeah and that's sometimes the source of debate I'd like to play an American I'd like to be able to show that I can do it you know we all sort of say I've got this trick up my sleeve i can speak like just like you can but if it's good shortest and it's unnecessary i don't think there's any any reason to do it i think if the part plays British and you have that already than I think leave it alone well Michael Caine who I'm known for 30 years insists that Vivien Leigh taught him to say four-door Ford and that did it but he always you know hints in hurry sundown he had a terrible southern accent Olivier could never play an American convincing and they were hided as a southern I think that something was film acting the camera is a very unforgiving thing it did seeks out the truth and I think that if you can keep it as close to you as possible I think the more effective it is you hosted Saturday Night Live ones I did was that in this building and yes and feel the ghost was that close to you to G were you nervous doing a comedy there's actually one of the most petrifying experiences of my entire life and especially when Lord Michael told me you know his one reassuring comment really at the beginning was just remember so the worst that can happen to you is your complete and utter humiliation in front of 55 million people did you feel humiliated we able to watch it later no I mean I'm quite capable of feeling humiliated just in the privacy of my own room you know but I am I I was actually too frightened we can get the forest humiliation it was a physical kind of paralysis where you are for mom again looking for acceptance together cast right that's true but real life Love Actually is a movie that I don't think got nearly attention it deserved it opened late in its year and it is a perennial Christmas favorite now by a lot of people who saw it this is interesting thing about films they you know they have one life when they come out and then they either died and they have no life ever after all they strangely have a life after that I mean symptoms like Apocalypse Now which was not very well received when it came out has now become one of the sort of you know the perennial classics if you turn off before Brando came on because I know I still have no idea what he was I don't know what I'm saying that that's achieved cult status now is this kind of gnomic which one of your films do you wish had had that kind of well I suppose I think the one that deserves it which I think suffered grave misfortune and is in its time with Val more oh because i think that's that's a wonderful beautiful an untold story which leads me to ask are you more you've done costume pieces i mean the girl to Pearl Earring is a beautiful film it requires attention it has a slow pace to it as a costume drama I you is at home in that kind of a garbage you are doing contemporary thought I don't care what the custom is really I mean it all goes together it I care more what the language on the page is really and then when it comes to deciding what the convention is and what century we're in I think I feel more informed by the words than by what the caught by the costumes i mean the costume there's some limitations i mean the trousers the pants i were in them and go with the Pearl Earring I had scarlet johansson calling me an oompa loompa through the entire shoot so there are a couple of things you have to sort of get behind you when you hurt texas-born renee zellweger speak with the Queen's English accent did you say not bad she wasn't that question that that was very confused because she never dropped the accent you know we would go for lunch listen she still sounded like she was from sorry was she'd be talking about her background and going to the rodeo attacks music I hadn't rodeos in Surrey lesson Mustang so it was it was very very disoriented and then of course there's Madonna who comes from Detroit trying to put on an English actor should trying to put on you think I noticed yeah it's code here that's my mind you're from Detroit don't be ashamed of that okay she's one of us now when you do something let's meet that that's a movie version of a very popular Broadway show Mama Mia you go to see the show or do you put it out of your mind and say I've got to bring my own interpretation I don't see the show because I couldn't make head nor tail of this script I mean it's it's a script that's written as a musical with a bow lyrics if you don't know the show god help you you know you're sitting there like you know Harry arrives enters you know through the door to the left Mamma Mia how can I resist yeah excuse me can you show me my way to my room Mamma Mia and how do you work your way through that as a story so I had to go and see this to find out what on earth was going on I'll tell you frankly I found its success I still find it success on Broadway bewildering but if anybody can make it a successful film it's you and Meryl Streep I mean that that's cause we're friends and I've told you that I'd yet you have a long way to go to ruin anything could you don't make bad films your father and mother were academics was there any of the things that we see in this movie wine wanting you to go into their career as a but as opposed to the one you chose yes it didn't play out in my life the way it plays out here my father couldn't be more different from this man I mean you know Arthur is a a charming but but somewhat you know aggressive and bullying figure and my father is quiet gentle and thoughtful but they were academics that's what they knew my father went to Cambridge his father went to Oxford and you know my mother is a philosophy graduate from nothing you know it was expected my sister had gone to college so they just didn't know they were afraid of the unfamiliar territory there and they were they didn't know where it would lead what the odds were so but they didn't do that to me they didn't once it started to go well they were right behind me the two scenes that touch me the most in this movie first when you revisit your first lover who would work in your house and your life has you almost walk away from the apartment when she's not there and you have this reunion and the final embrace your father where they beautifully mesh it from you as a boy going off to college you know to now help tough where were those scenes in particularly but it's interesting oceans when you're filming something are often not they don't entirely correspond with the emotions of the character they would come in the same moments getting into a role is an emotional experience very often just playing it you get in to begin another kind of mindset at that point and it has to because it's not a lot of discipline involved so you're releasing something you've prepared earlier if you like but the scene that you're talking about with the girl it was it was imperative that we do not see my character shed any tears until the moment comes you know the film has to tell a story about the difficulty of shedding tears and that these things don't release conveniently they don't release when you want them to and actually that singing I if I work at wonder if i were to shed tears spontaneously would have been there you know and that they're all goes wrong and I hold her and it was a mistake and I say sorry that would have been a moment to to let it all go but it wasn't the right place for this story then when the director told me about his plan for that embrace which involved building a circular track around us you know my father who's dead now he comes out as a kind of hallucination the day you know the day of the funeral and I see him coming out to say goodbye to me at the moment i'm off to school and suddenly he's younger and suddenly i'm 17 and he's more emotional than we've ever seen him he's struggling to to express his his sorrow that I'm leaving and then he grabs me in an embrace which he rarely ever does and you see his breaking up he says I'll miss you boy and the camera comes around and it's me my father's dead i'm holding in myself miss you too now in the director described the shot to me that's when I got emotional you know just just from having a very basic technical description directly here we are we're all in our kind of you know cold rain gear and you sing like accidentally a track here and I'm going to have you here and you're going to do any better then the embraces going to turn into you and I was like okay sounds like a good setup first time I shed its here at the movies in nineteen years was in that scene the last time was field of dreams when he's having a catch with his father wow this is colin firth the movie is called when did you last see your father and if you haven't seen your father late then you're still lucky to have your father go see your father and take him to this movie it'll touch you deeply it's good to see you again thank you

Channel: Colin The Firth

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Id: YVex5DMQ2z4

Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019