Archived completely due to unavailability on the internet
LADIES, be prepared. Those who swooned at the sight of Colin Firth emerging from a lake dripping wet in shirt and breeches in Pride And Prejudice or wandering through the snow in Bridget Jones's Diary won't want to miss his new film, Where The Truth Lies.
And Firth is right in the middle of them.
"A role like that is not usually a stretch for most actors," he jokes. "Playing a lord of the manor riding around Derbyshire required a lot more research.
"I wasn't trying to manipulate people's perceptions of me, I just go where I'm most comfortable," he adds. "Romantic comedies came relatively late in my career and took me by surprise. I'm still surprised about it. But roles like this can be found in the ancient archives of my career."
Adapted from Rupert Holmes's crime noir thriller, Where The Truth Lies has Firth and co-star Kevin Bacon playing a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-style double act in 1950s Hollywood.
They become celebrities and use their fame to seduce countless women - until a murder after a threesome with a hotel maid (Rachel Blanchard) brings their world crashing down.
Where The Truth Lies then jumps to the 1970s, when Firth's character is a washed-up has-been and an investigative reporter attempts to discover the impact of the murder on the pair's lives and their subsequent professional break-up.
"When I see a scenario like that, I daren't look to my future as an actor," Firth laughs.
The Egyptian-born Canadian Atom Egoyan, a director who has happily existed in the art-house world with films such as Exotica, The Sweet Hereafter and Felicia's Journey, suggested Firth aim for a mix of David Niven and Rex Harrison in his character. But Firth says he was attracted to the character's dark psyche.
"Vince is a very bleak character to portray," he says. "Playing him was a real stare into the abyss, actually. To desperately need your celebrity fix and yet have it as part of your burden must be a kind of hell.
"Rather than just playing a psychopath or mass murderer, it was interesting to play someone who is apparently what you expect me to be, and then take off the mask to reveal something darker."
The darkness is not something we'd expect of the English actor. After springing to heart-throb status in 1995 in the TV adaptation of Pride And Prejudice as Mr Darcy emerged from the lake (which he later revealed he was supposed to be naked for but the BBC would not allow it), Firth has gathered female fans all over the world with his intense stares and romantic gestures in, among others, Bridget Jones's Diary and Love Actually.
As for the latest graphic sex scenes, Egoyan says they were imperative.
"It's an essential part of the film," Egoyan says. "I always saw this as a really sensual movie. I wanted it to be unbridled - these characters could take any amount of drugs they wanted, they could have any amount of sex they wanted.
"I don't know about the censors. They probably will have issues, but we are pretty firm about what we want the film to do."
After putting his clothes back on, Firth will next star in the new film from Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh.
He will appear opposite Robert Carlyle in The Meat Trade, a contemporary reworking of the story of 19th-century bodysnatchers Burke and Hare.
Welsh has written the screenplay for the film, which is set in Edinburgh and will be directed by Antonia Bird.
