Interview: "Colin Firth First Person Singular" (Filmink Australia)

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Interview: "A Single Man" by Simon Jablonski (Dazed Digital)

DD: People are calling this your finest performance yet, how do you feel about that?

Colin Firth: One thing that is satisfying, and a source of great relief, is that I’ve been asked to do a great deal more, the focus is on me more than it’s ever been. It’s much better than people saying, “they put a whole film on Firth’s shoulders and he dropped the ball.” So, in some ways it’s very gratifying. It’s very much in my hands and people like it and get it, so thank God. I only ever feel like I do what’s on the page, and there was a lot on the page this time. I got carried along on a free ride when brilliant people like Nick and Matthew and Julianne show up. Also having a director who has the time and patience to photograph something without me having to be flamboyant about it. I’m not the most demonstrative actor. I do like to try to do what I think people really do which is think their thoughts and feeling without indicating all over the place. And to have a director who has the patience to let it unfold, is not afraid of silence, is not afraid of stillness who doesn’t compulsively editorialise whilst you’re working, who just lets you get on with it and, when necessary, gets the camera close enough to pick up what you’re doing. That suits me and the way I work very well...more

Interview: "Colin Firth and Tom Ford make 'A Single Man' one of their single great achievements " by Carla Hay (The Examiner)

Colin Firth and Tom Ford at the Toronto International Film Festival Press Conference for "A Single Man"


Colin, what’s your favorite color?
Firth: What’s my favorite color? Blue.


And how did it feel pulling the clothing off for your nude scenes?
Firth: [He laughs.] I preferred having it on.
Ford: Are you sure you don’t work for a U.K. paper? That sounds like a U.K. question.

Colin, was it difficult to shoot that scene when George gets the phone call that his lover has died in a car accident?
Firth: I find I can’t answer questions about that scene. I don’t know how it was arrived at. I do it happened the night Barack Obama was elected. It wasn’t the easiest day to be grief-stricken. I don’t know. I don’t remember.


We love to get on the set and kind of get emotionally ready. You go, "I’ve got the tears coming. Roll the camera. Here we are. I’m in the zone now." Roll camera. Cry. Histrionics. Or whatever emotion they’re trying to conjure. What I find difficult — and I remember we had exercises in this when I was a drama student — come into the room in one condition and be in another by the end of it. Something has to happen to change your mood. You can’t pre-prepare the end. So basically, I have to start the phone call happy, get a series of shocks, allow that to percolate, and end it in a state of complete devastation with the camera rolling. Tom let it go on; he let the magazine roll out, I think, for about 11 minutes...more

Interview: Colin Firth triumphs with an extraordinarily unique performance in 'A Single Man' by Carlay Hay (The Examiner)

In a recent New York Times article about you said that Tom Ford called you "fat" before you started filming "A Single Man." What kind of changes to your diet or fitness regime did you make to get in better shape?I didn’t do much change to the diet. I just ate less, I guess. I haven’t actually spoken about what version of that is true. The subtext is definitely the thing, but Tom, if he said that, I filtered it out. I didn’t hear it. 
He tended to handle me with honeyed tones. [He imitates Tom Ford’s voice] "You look great, really great. If you want to get a trainer, he’ll come to your house every day. I’ll pay for it." That means, "You’re fat." Whether Tom remembers literally having said it or having it euphemistically, it’s the same. And I guess he did me a favor: one final push in the war against gravity in my late 40s. It’s probably helpful...more

Interview: "Colin Firth plays against type" by Katherine Monk (Canwest News Service)

Warmth radiating behind a cool exterior is a natural draw and, for Firth, it seems to be a natural state of being, because, at some level, you can tell he doesn't care about all this entertainment business hullabaloo.

Just watching him entertain questions from reporters as he sits quietly - and ever so elegantly - in his deco chair at the Toronto International Film Festival, Firth is the embodiment of alpha male tolerance: He's just rolling with the punches as he greets the non-stop parade of inquisitors more...

Interview:"Complexity of character excites Firth" by David Mermelstein (Variety)

"I was faced with a character who has a fastidious exterior but within that experiences despair, frivolity, laughter, lust, regret, terror, melancholy, serenity -- all in the same day he's experiencing hysterical grief," says the actor. "I don't know how many roles I've had that offer that range of emotion and experience."

"I felt at liberty," he says. "In roles where the writing's not very good, you have to suppress things. It's frustrating playing someone stupider than you, but I had the measure of George: He was smart, and the way he masks his massive despair is poignant. That obsession with external perfection is a sign of panic. He has to control his exterior world because his interior one is chaos. His precision is all desperate measures more....

Interview: "Colin Firth, feeling 'Single' by Tina Daunt (LA Times)

"There was a serenity on the set," Firth said. "I was given the space to engage and to feel it. Tom didn't bombard us with instructions; we weren't given any really. But you knew by the way he said, 'That was great,' if it was or wasn't great.

"The movie is about isolation and the agony of loving someone who isn't there anymore," he said. "It's universal. It doesn't matter what your sexual [orientation] is. Love is love." more....

Interview: "A Single Man" Colin Firth by Ian Freer (Empire)

Interview: "A singular man" by Susan Chenery (The Australian)

"LAST time we met you may have noticed me looking at you strangely," the email said when Colin Firth went online one morning. "This is why," continued the email, going on to offer him a lead role in a film.


Trouble was, the email was not from any film director of whom Firth had heard. It was from fashion designer Tom Ford. "I didn't know what to think," Firth admits. "Like everybody else I thought, 'Isn't he to do with the fashion business, eyewear and all that sort of thing?' " Firth's scepticism was not unfounded; panic, in fact, might have been an appropriate response....more

Interview: Colin Firth masters the art of getting older, wiser and better (The Examiner)

Congratulations on winning the award for best actor at this year’s Venice Film Festival. People seemed to be impressed that you accepted the award in Italian. Your accent was pretty flawless. Did you pick up any tips from your wife on how to speak Italian? [Firth’s wife, Livia Giuggioli, is from Italy.]
No, she hasn’t taught me a damn thing! [He laughs.] I did know [I won the award] a few hours before. Word gets around a little bit. I’m not supposed to say that. The camera wasn’t on me when they announced it, so I didn’t have to do one those [he does a fake surprised expression on his face]. I knew nothing about [which film] won the Golden Lion Award or anybody else’s.
But I didn’t have to fake how I felt. Even when I talk about it now, still, it makes me a little speechless. What I first thought was, "That’s why people cry at the Oscars!" I’d never understood it. I wasn’t about to cry, but I can see why people get their breath taken away. It really is unexpected. It disarms. More

Interview: Colin Firth doesn't always have to play the romantic (Vancouver Sun)

"There are certain times in one's career when you take a role out of necessity. You just need a job. That's a very real concern for almost every actor. But the luxury of being employed on a regular basis is you can afford to, you know, evaluate each project and what it means to you," he says.

"That's not to say I think I've made some shabby choices in the past. It just means I can make a noble choice over a shabby one."

The eyes smile. The mouth does not. More