Interview: "Colin's sleazy side" by Anita Singh (The Mercury Australia)

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.

The actor instantly conjures up images of a wealthy, slightly pompous, romantic comedy lead, but he's veered wildly from that for this murder mystery. The 44-year-old plays a pill-popping celebrity with an insatiable need for sex and some of the images are so raw, they troubled the North American censors and earned an R18+ rating here for the "high level sex scenes".
 
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.

Interview: Oh, Mr Darcy, by Mary Colbert (The Sydney Morning Herald)

The unthinkable has happened: British actor Colin Firth is talking about "shagging". Mr Darcy, shagging?
 
The heart-throb of millions of female viewers of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice and the Bridget Jones's Diary movies is expounding on the explicit sex scenes in his latest movie, Where the Truth Lies.
 
In Atom Egoyan's film we see plenty of Firth, who first sent a wave of hysteria across the globe as he emerged from a lake in a dripping wet shirt and breeches.
 
In Where the Truth Lies, adapted from Rupert Holmes's noir crime thriller, Firth plays the pill-popping, sex-driven Vince Collins, one-half of America's hottest showbiz musical comedy partnership of the 1950s. In one scene, Firth has a threesome with fellow comic Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and a hotel maid (Rachel Blanchard), who is later found dead in their hotel suite.
 
"Safety in numbers," Firth says. "Actually, I was saved by Kevin's butt." He grins across the table at Bacon, so renowned for his cinematic bed forays that detainees on a US witness-protection programme complained online "that his dangling member gets into far too many movies. Somebody should talk to him about it."

"What do you mean?" Bacon says. "You showed up late that week after I'd done most of the hard work."
 
Firth: "I hadn't been filming the week that some solid shagging took place between Kevin and various women, so by the time I showed up there was no interest at all. The crew were so sick of the sight of his butt and mine offered nothing new. People make a lot of the sexual thing but that's really only one more weird thing we get to do."
 
Egoyan's film is a far stretch from his last one, Ararat, about the genocide of Armenians. The director's mandate was that the sex be sensual and unbridled.
 
"A role like that usually isn't a huge stretch for most actors," Firth says, who admits it was a refreshing change from the recent spate of romantic comedies. Was it an escape from typecasting for the theatre-trained thespian?
 
"Not necessarily," Firth says.
 
"They came to me quite late in my career and are fun, but the appeal was the character's inherent darkness and, of course, the opportunity to work with Atom."
 
Firth and Bacon's comic duo are loosely modelled on the lives of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Egoyan suggested Firth aim for a mix of David Niven and Rex Harrison. The story moves between the '70s, when a young investigative reporter attempts to ferret out the repercussions of the murder on the duo's private and professional lives, and the subsequent break-up of their long-standing partnership.
 
Where the Truth Lies focuses on a complex exploration of celebritydom's underbelly. The film also gives the actors a canvas to improvise their own comedy and verbal jousts as well as sing.
 
Amend that to singing for one.
 
Bacon claims Firth hired a singing coach, only to be told his forte lay in the verbal thrusts.
 
For Firth, the drawcard lay in his screen persona's dark psyche.
 
"Vince is a very bleak character to portray. 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."
 
Firth adds that depression is one of the least socially permissible things for human beings. "It is still considered very antisocial and shameful.
It used to be sex. But that's still a very private matter. Loneliness, fear and insecurity are much more so."

Interview: "At the movies: Where The Truth Lies" (ABC Australia)

It is a very interesting thing to study. What do you present on stage, what's the dream that you're peddling? What...what is it you're selling? What do you want people to accept you as? And the more divorced that is from what you are when you walk off that stage, the more fractured you become. And I think...this, I think, led to the choice of playing him as an Englishman, because in the novel he's not. In the novel he's an Italian/American. And I was tempted to do that, I wanted to show that I can do that. And it would have been great fun for me and hopefully to my advantage. But there was no getting away from the fact that making him English was...was irresistibly interesting. And, er, both from the point of view of the actor we were creating and the contrast between the characters, and from the point of the view of that paradox that we're talking about, the English gentleman who expects the English gentleman to explode so violently?....more

Interview: "A scandal myself " (Vanity Fair Italy)

Archived completely due to unavailability on the internet

This Italian interview is translated to English by Margo.

He has the face and the fame of a nice guy. And in cinema this face and this fame have been following him (Remember the clumsy lover boy of Bridget Jones?) But now, prepare to see him in a bisex orgy with Kevin Bacon. Are you embarrassed? “I’ve done worst… "

Hardly ever happens to find a stranger who – about Italy- has something else to say besides “How much I love spaghetti”. On the contrary, Colin Firth is acquainted with (and fully appreciates) Giuseppe Piccioni’s movies and manages to read the daily press, sensing not only certain political irregularities of our country, but  the great difference between the “oral” Italian language and that of the “press language”, as well. He has try to read the “Oceano mare” (sea ocean) by Alessandro Baricco. What caused him to do it? Love! Just like it happened in his character  at the film “Love actually”- the guy that learned Portuguese because he fell in love with a girl from that country.
In real life, Colin  fell in love with a brunette and very pretty  Italian lady, the producer Livia Giuggioli, to whom has been married since eight years and have two sons, Luca 4 and Matteo 2 ( he has also a third son, Will 15, from an affair with the actress Meg Tilly).  People around him say that he speaks Italian much better than he is willing to admit, but we’re getting the interview in English, with only some small verbal incursions like “rincoglionito” (stupid) because, as Colin says, there is no such  an equivalent in his own language.
 
We are in Rome, at the bar of “Hotel de Russie”, Colin arrives punctually, dressed in jeans and blue jacket. In flesh and blood he’s more sexy and tall than in cinema. He has a fine sense of  irony, which emerges, in surprise, during the most serious discussions. He makes me think of those unknown schoolmates who, years afterwards, reveal to be genious.
He’s starring in two movies, released right now  at the theaters, very much unlike: The fairytale for children Nanny Mc Phee (already released) and the morbid, exciting nightmare for adults “Where The Truth Lies” of Atom Egoyan, to be released in theaters this weekend. For those who used  to affection  Bridget Jones’s Mark Darcy, sane sample of  clumsy charm, “Where The Truth Lies” could be a shock. At least at the scene of  bisex orgy, where Colin attacks Kevin Bacon.

In this movie, the two actors are performing two entertainers of the ‘50s , rich, famous and debonair. The leading heros personalities got inspired by those of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, while the movie is about a world where T.V. was at the very beginning, the celebrities were “divas” and Las Vegas was Las Vegas.
 
How difficult is making a sex scene, mostly gay, while you are not a gay?
I was not feeling very easy. But you never are during sex scenes. It’s a terrible moment, when you have to take off your clothes in front of all that people, even at 7 in the morning, right after you had had breakfast. But it’s worst in real life. The most important is the relation with the person you have to make the scene with. In that case, the fact that between me and Kevin there was neither tension, nor attraction, make things get easier. People use to imagine things  about what’s behind sex scenes in cinema, but, as for myself I find much more difficult performing scenes of violence. Above all, if you’re the one who beats- it’s really embarrassing. It is better when you’re on the receiving end. You have plastic capsules in your mouth, which are making fake blood come out and you feel like a hero. In the set of the “Hostages”- a T.V.  production , once, I got them really hard. At the end of the scene my “torturers, who were not professional actors, were very much in worry. Kept asking over and over: “Are you sure, you’re O.K.?”
 
In the homonyms book of “Where the Truth Lies” (by Rupert Holmes) there is a certain phrase: “You never bite the hand that  applauses you” . It defines the ambiguous of fame: You desire it, but there are consequences following. What’s your own relation with celebrity? 
It is quite tranquil, cause my career went ahead step by step, with moments of happiness and others of disillusion. In general, I believe there is hardly an actor in the whole world, who can not walk out there in Via del Corso without being disturbed.
Depend on the way you treat it. Of course, if someone walks around accompanied with body guards, wearing a pair of  sunglasses, ready to be photographed…….
 
Don’t your ever been recognized?
Yes, indeed. In the supermarket, actually. Well, there is always someone who’s spying on you, and grabs the mobile phone to tell friends what’s in my handcart. I swear it has happened!
 
And what was in there? 
I don’t remember. Probably toilet tissue! Great scoop, indeed!
 
The movie (WTTL) is also about Telethon and actors making beneficences. In  real life, you’re involved in various initiatives about Africa, about fair and stable trade, about civil rights. There are so many of you, the actors, doing that. Why?
It’s true, from an external point of view, it looks like a fashion. And it is also true that there is an element of hypocrisy in the fact that privileged people like we are, getting on the tribune to say what one should or should not do. I got involved because I had enough of reading the newspapers and do nothing but shaking my head. Then, if you really believe in this, there is no way back.  Humanitarian associations that are acquainted to you are calling or help and you certainly can’t say “I’m sorry, this week I don’t feel like helping with global famine, I have some other things to do.”
 
Bob Gedolf has actually stop performing as a musician in order to dedicate himself in humanitarian affairs. Could you do something like that?
No, I’m too egoist. Though, I believe that this kind of activity brings more critics than advantages. Plenty of them: The most cynics are thinking that you do it out of vanity and exhibitionism. Certainly it’s a paradox to have a nice house, living a good life as I do, and then go to find the cultivators of coffee in Ethiopia. But you can’t use the celebrity only for having the best place at a restaurant or travel first class.
 
What happens, in particular, when a person like you goes to Africa?
It happens that the people of the country are happy to see me and to know that I’m interested about them. Even if they know pretty well that none of my initiatives can radically change their situation, or even more free the world out of its tragedies. The solidarity though, it’s not something you can measure up in style: “Today I saved one refugee”, “On the contrary, me,I have saved two.” Otherwise, it doesn’t really serves.
 
Excuse me for saying that, but you seem to me too articulate to be an actor.
Thank you for the praise! Though you would be amazed to find out just how many intelligent actors are there.
 
And how come people think it’s the other way ‘round?
Cause, if we attend a pianist playing Rachmaninov, we stay charmed by his ability. We think: “I could not do that myself.” On the other hand, acting looks like something anyone can do. But it’s not like that.
 
Could you explain it to me?

It doesn’t matter. There is nothing more boring than an actor talking about his job.

Interview: "Colin Firth caught in a trio" (Metro Belgium)

Archived completely due to unavailability on the internet.

This Dutch interview is translated to English by Debby. 

Colin Firth will always be remembered for his Mr Darcy role in the tv series "Pride and Prejudice" and the Bridget Jones' movies. But this 45 year old Brit played more firmly roles. Like the football player in "Fever Pitch", the immoral womanizer in "Valmont" and Gwyneth Paltrow's arrogant fiancee in "Shakespeare in Love". Firth playes the most fierce character in "Where the truth lies", a drama from cult-director Atom Egoyan, in cinema's from this week on.

In "Where The Truth lies" Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon play Vince and Lanny, two variety artists (slightly inspired by Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin) who have a hedonistic lifestyle. When a journalist investigates a murder they were involved in, we see a darker part of their past coming up. The scene in which Vince and Lanny are involved with a young woman in a trio was a big issue for the American censors. The film received a NC-17 rating, despite Egoyan's try to change the scene.

What is your reaction on the controverse around "Where The Truth Lies"?
"I don't know what to think. I have never seen a naked body before (laughs).
I suspect that a lot of people in America don't like naked bodies and sex. One man can't change that. I have to say that these nude scene's are not that explicit.
The definition of pornography, according to the MPAA (the organization that started the rating system in 1968), is something like "Every production without artistic value that arrouses erotic longings". That sounds like 70 percent of the commercials on the American cable channels. It is all right when a sexbomb rubs oneself with lemonade. Children can see that.
You can't say that "Where The Truth Lies" has no artistic value. The scene they make a fuss about was created specially not to prickle".

It doesn't.....
"You have to feel sorry for the person who gets prickled by it. I think this scene makes people think, it was made well-considered. The MPAA made it very clear that they had no problem with the homosexual aspect, but they never made clear what the real problem was. We had to adapt it all the time. But the MPAA people were very strict about it. It did a lot of damage to the film".
 
You will be in the family comedy Nanny McPhee and now in this sinister drama "Where The Truth Lies." Do you choose such variety of roles on purpose?
"No. I don't take part as a reaction on parts I've just played. I take it when I like a role. That can be whatever role. My next project (Firth is talking about Toyer from Brian De Palma, in which he playes a weird serial killer) I chose because of a very different reason. It will be a very dark and complex film".
 
Is money a reason?
"I love money (laughs). When the role is bad and the money is good, I will go for the good role with little money. It depends on the circumstances or the amount of people that depend on me. Of course I love to get a big cheque. If I have an interesting part and good money I will be very happy".
 
What do you think when you look at your own performances?
"Mostly I feel the urge to vomit. It is a disturbing experience over and over again. It is unnatural if you ask me. When you listen to yor own voice on the tape you also think "is this my voice? How strange." No one likes to look at himself. Seeing yourself on screen can cause a trauma. I prefer other people to watch me".
 
Will you be in a third Bridget Jones movie?
Sure, but only if they stick neeldles in my eyes.

Interview: "Don't call me Darcy, says Colin" (The Ilford Recorder)

Firth: I've been hearing year after year after year, "well this is a departure for you, isn't it?" I don't know how many departures I have to make. I think if someone hadn't seen Bridget Jones, or Pride and Prejudice, and had only seen Trauma or, going back further, seen Tumbledown or Master of the Moor, they'd probably wonder why I always killed people.
I don't do things in order to change the pattern really, I just do it because I like a script and think it might be interesting.....more

Interview: "Mr Darcy dares to bare everything" by Caroline Briggs (BBC News)

The film explores the dark side of fame, fortune, and celebrity, something Firth says he was immediately attracted to.
"I liked all the dark stuff, the unpredictability of the character, and I thought it had a lot of possibilities," he told the BBC News website.
"[Darker roles] are not entirely new to me. In Trauma, which I did about three years ago, and throughout the 1980s, I was playing characters who were less than pleasant."It's not a reaction to typecasting - I just tend to like that territory. "I have reaped enormous benefits from doing rom coms... but I tend to be more comfortable in drama than in comedy."

Tortured is always good for an actor. I don't know anyone who doesn't want to do a bit of torturing," he added.
"It is hard to imagine any central character in any film that is happy at the beginning, happy in the middle, then happy at the end. What story has there been?....more

Interview: "Is that Mr Darcy taking part in an orgy?" by Sheila Johnston (The Telegraph)

Aside from its more lubricious elements, one of its presiding themes is the shifting sands of showbusiness and, in particular, the seismic shift between the star-struck 1950s and the ruthless 1970s when celebrities' secret lives became fair game for the media.
It's something that both Firth and Bacon - though both men's lives are mercifully scandal-free - are well-placed to comment on.
"My parents get weird phone calls and people showing up at their house," Firth says. "They're innocent about it - they want to be nice to absolutely everybody because that's the kind of people they are, and they answer questions politely. Then they'll get me on the phone saying, 'How could you tell them about the Batman outfit I had when I was 19?' The press are pretty determined and they'll do anything. It doesn't matter to them what the wreckage is in someone's life after the one-day story....more

Interview: "Director's edgy moment of 'Truth" by Roger Moore (Orlando Sentinel)

Archived completely due to unavailability on the internet

It's been a rough few weeks," says director Atom Egoyan.

The Canadian maverick had received an estimated $25 million to make his "most commercial" film, with a "name" cast that includes Kevin Bacon, Allison Lohman and Colin Firth.

It was in the can, ready to hit a few film festivals and then head into North America's movie theaters this fall.

Then he ran into a little thing called the MPAA -- the studio-run Motion Picture Association of America, whose ratings board decides what to label movies: G, PG, PG-13, R -- or the dreaded adults-only NC-17.

Egoyan, director of The Sweet Hereafter and Exotica, earned commercial cinema's equivalent of the death penalty. As reported in Variety, the MPAA identified four scenes in the sexually explicit murder mystery, including a menage a trois that Egoyan could not cut to its satisfaction. His studio appealed, but no dice.

ThinkFilm decided to release Where the Truth Lies without a rating. To no avail, as it turns out.
Truth won't be coming to a theater near you.
The studio gave up on rolling it into new cities, including Orlando, as of Friday.

"I was happy, at least, to see the film in its uncut state," Egoyan says. "The last time I saw it was at the MPAA's screening room in Los Angeles in our 'final cut' version, and I was really unhappy.

"It was a very confusing moment for me, because one side of me really wanted to get the R, and the other side didn't want the movie to go out that way. I guess I'm just relieved that the film won't be tampered with."

Movies with NC-17 have a hard time advertising on mainstream outlets. The rating also restricts the audience, ruling out those 17 and younger. Releasing a film unrated skirts that stigma, though studios prefer to have films rated, widely advertised and able to reach the largest audience.

Truth is based on a lurid serio-comic novel by Rupert Holmes, the singer-songwriter of "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)." The film is about a reporter (Lohman) who investigates a long-covered-up scandal, a murder mystery overshadowing the breakup of a beloved comic team (Firth and Bacon). Her research uncovers the kinky sexual overtones of the mystery and how they relate to the long-estranged comics.

The MPAA doesn't make public statements about its edicts, but filmmakers are certain that the movie's suggestions of gay sex earned it that NC-17 stamp.

"I think they offered the information early on that this is 'not, repeat not, about the homosexuality,' " says Bacon. "And that's a pretty good indication to me that it is about the homosexuality."

Firth seconds that.
"We're being penalized for the nature of the sexuality," Firth says. "I've seen many movies with more nudity. The sex here is not pornographic or titillating. It's this business of them telling us, 'Well, there's one thrust too many' that is so maddening about this. It's hypocrisy at its worst."

Egoyan says that the very fact that his film has a name cast "and all this Hollywood studio machinery behind it is what is transgressive about it. If this had been an indie film with lesser-known actors, there wouldn't have been any fuss whatsoever."

In any event, it's the uncut Truth that took its shot in theaters, and failed. But look for it on DVD.

Interview: "We find Where The Truth Lies" by Sam Toy (Empire Online)

Looking at the stuff that you have coming up on IMDB-
I'd take it with a pinch of salt, IMDB. I find that I'm involved in things I've barely heard of. They're things people try and set up, the order of things have been changed. So none of those are certainties.

Would you still consider rom-com roles in the future?
I consider anything that’s good, really. The criteria is quite broad for why I would take on something. As I said in the case of Atom Egoyan, a director could be the first hook. I’ve done jobs because there’s a group of people I want to work with. But a good comedy is hard to come by and I’ll definitely do it if I feel it’s worthwhile. One of the things on that list is called Gambit, which is written by the Coen brothers. Having said that I’m not really up for comedy at the moment, this came along which is so brilliantly written - it’d be stupid not to jump at it, if it happens.....more
 

Interview: "Sex on legs! Me?" by John Millar (The Daily Record)

While you can imagine the Firth children one day getting a lot of fun from seeing dad making a fool of himself in the pie fight, Colin is quite content to keep his children distanced from his career.
He said: "I'm not particularly anxious for my youngsters to see my work early on. Until they start to get really curious about it all I will leave it. It's a bit odd watching dad running around in a film....more

Interview: "Colin Firth: the charmed life of a late-blooming heartthrob" by Liam Lacey (Globe and Mail)

"I've always been taught that without resistance, you can't develop -- whether it's your muscles or your voice or your acting ability. It's a tragedy really when creative people get so rich and famous that people open doors and smile all the time and give them everything you want. Now I've worked in America a lot of times and by far the majority of actors [there] are very well-grounded, [with] enormous senses of humour and very professional. But I've seen star behaviour. It's not even the star's behaviour, but watching it being connived at by people around them: not rolling their eyes, not questioning, not laughing when they hear something particularly pompous, all of which is destructive to the person who's being fawned on.....more

Interview: "Bacon and Firth consider comedy dates" (Contactmusic)

Firth wishes he and Bacon could find the nerve to visit select comedy clubs with their act.
He tells Canada's Toronto Star newspaper, "It would have been fun to have the time and the guts to do that sort of thing.
"We fantasised about getting an act together. We had a pretty easy crowd (on set) paid a lot of money to laugh at us very loudly. I don't know how we'd go down with a hostile crowd. But they had us convinced that we had something going.....more 

Interview: "Firth and Bacon upset about NC-17 rating" (Contactmusic)

"The actual sex is not explicit. I've seen much, much, much more explicit sex on the shelves of Blockbuster (video/DVD store). I think there's a discomfort in the drama, which shows that the drama has been successful. And that's exactly what we were looking for.....more

Interview: with the cast of "Where The Truth Lies" (at Cannes) by Berge Garabedian (Joblo.com)

I think we'd be foolish to be surprised by the reaction, since it really does happen every time, it's extraordinary what it stirs up. And over the years, particularly where actresses are concerned, that one movie that they did where they took their clothes, has haunted them, it's been mentioned in every article somebody has written about them subsequently.....more

Interview: "Love at Firth Sight" by Jessica Shaw (Entertainment Weekly)

Days after finishing Bridget press in the States, Firth is back on the Truth set, purging himself of Mark Darcy and reveling in his new persona. ''I'm attracted to dark stuff, and I'm in that mode right now,'' he says. But the darkness could come only after the dawn. ''The things that have limited me have also been currency for me....more

Interview: "Keeping up with the Joneses" by Thomas Leupp (Joblo.com)

No, it starts to get confusing. No, there was never any talk of Colin Firth appearing as a character. That wasn't contemplated for even a second. In fact, when the contract was being negotiated for Bridget Jones's Diary four years ago, I remember when they were discussing the option for the sequel, which was part of the contract, I think my agent said to whoever was at the other end of this, "If there is a sequel, who will play Colin Firth?" And there was a long pause at the other end of the phone, and the woman said, "We'll call you back." They called Kit about a half an hour later, saying, "There are currently no plans to feature a character named Colin Firth.....more

Interview: "Colin Firth" by Fred Topel (CHUD.com)

Archived completely due to unavailability on the internet 

I was all set to interview Colin Farrell and hear all his swearing and drunken sex stories, so imagine my disappointment when it was prim and proper Colin Firth. Oh well, I guess it’s still better than Colin Hanks.

Firth rounds out our trilogy of Bridget Jones interviews. Reprising his role as Mark Darcy, the dry British gentleman, Firth is a little bit nicer in this film. He’s not harassing Bridget, waiting for the last scene to redeem himself. In fact, he’s really the good guy in this as he tries to be patient through Bridget’s all new relationship neurosis.
In person, Firth is very much the dry British guy. He’s perfectly cordial and thoughtful answering questions, but he’s very straight and deadpan. Deadpan isn’t even right, because he’s not joking much. Hugh Grant was deadpan. Colin Firth is just straightforward.

Q: Does Darcy have a character arc? If not, what was the challenge of bringing something unique to Darcy?
Colin: I don't know if there's an arc. The Darcy thing's been going on for so long for me. It's beginning to feel like an arc that dates back to 1994. This felt like another episode in this ongoing story of some guy's life in one version or another. I suppose that if there's a shape to what he goes through, in some ways it would be the path from the film three years ago. What happens when they walk off into the sunset? What happens to happily ever after? You see something of their -- the bliss of their relationship, which I think is one of the hardest things that you can seek to portray in any sort of genre or comedy. You see the irritations and you see the patterns repeat themselves. You see the things that annoyed each of them about each other when they first met actually come to haunt them. You see them separate, and then, you actually see a pattern that's actually one we've seen before. She suspects him of being, well, she finds him standoffish. She finds him arrogant, rigid and all the things that she didn't like when she first met him all come back. And all the good deeds he's doing are hidden away. He doesn't demonstrate any of them. Daniel Cleaver comes back on the scene. So you've basically got it very familiar.

Q: Were you ready to do this again?
Colin: I didn't want to think of it as “again.” You see, I think it certainly wouldn't have been something I wanted to do if it felt like doing it again. The way we like to characterize this is that it is an adaptation of a novel, which was finished, done, dusted and an entity in its own right, I think already on the shelves by the time we made the first film. So, it did have a right to exist. It wasn't just conjured up to try to cash in on an earlier film. Having said that, yes, we were extremely cautious all of us I think. We didn't want it just to seem like an homage to something else. There are great dangers when the first film is very much loved. But we didn't want to mess with that really. And I don't think anyone recalls ever having said "Yes" to this job. It was something that, you know, there was a momentum that happened and it seemed inevitable. Not unlike getting your draft papers really.

Q: Did you rehearse the fight scene? How did you get it to look so realistic?
Colin: We didn't rehearse it very much. I'm ashamed to say the reason it looked real is because we were two normal fellows who don't know how to fight. My experience of violent confrontation dates back to the playground age, about six or seven years old. So that's what I drew from, and I think Hugh would say the same. If you get two very angry yuppies and then put them together, I think you will get a fight that looks much more like that than Jackie Chan.

Q: Would you do a Bridget Jones 3?
Colin: In the abstract, it's unthinkable. I don't really plan in the long term about anything. I can't think where a sequel could go. I think this time one would have to think of it as a sequel, unless Helen wrote another book. The only which I could possibly imagine it being interesting is that if it showed us in a state of advanced decrepitude really, a heavily deteriorated Mark Darcy. I think we're on the way. And Daniel Cleaver and Bridget, really puncturing the fairy tale completely might be a way to take it. But I've been ready to move on to other things for quite a while now actually. I'll be quite content to live my life without another one.

Q: Would you be willing to alter your physical appearance/weight like Renee did for a role? What was your reaction to her doing that?
Colin: I didn't give it as much thought as many people do. The degree to which I'm asked questions about it and the sheer level of fascination on the subject is I think really a symptom of how this issue affects people, particularly women. The fact that women are in utter disbelief that anyone would consciously go the other way -- to actually try to do that -- is mind blowing. And I think they look at Renee with the same kind of awe that people watch someone on a high wire or something. Are they going to fall? How could anyone jump across the Grand Canyon on a motorcycle? Put on weight on purpose? What's that like? Tell us about it. She did it. It's not that unusual for actors to alter their appearance to play a part. Put on a bit of weight, lose a bit of weight. I mean I have done that before, advertently and otherwise. Not to perhaps quite that extent, but I think if I did it, it wouldn't get anywhere near the amount of attention.

Q: Wouldn't it depend on how many pounds?
Colin: Yes, it would. I think that the most spectacular is the example that I think that I can remember, the first example that I know of, is what DeNiro did in Raging Bull. And I think that did get a lot of attention from people astonished, partly because of the extent to which he did it. It was a sacrifice made. I think he talked afterwards about having damaged his health to some extent.

Q: Or Tom Hanks going the opposite way.
Colin: And then getting skinny. These are dangerous things to do. I think that's probably the thing that occurred to me most. I just hoped Renee was under the proper supervision, and I think she was. I think you are taking your health in your hands. I think it's a very courageous thing to do. But the reason why people are really interested isn't because of that. I just think it's absolutely fascinating to think that a woman would dare to do that on purpose, particularly someone who's very attractive and has a Hollywood-based career. It just seems almost reckless. So I think that's been admired and I think that, to be honest, Bridget doesn't have to be particularly overweight. I mean this is about women think they are whether they are or not. But on the other hand I think if she'd been, if she'd had the kind of leanness that only Hollywood actresses have, I think it would have been quite hard to accept her as representing that kind of neurosis. So it was important that she did it.

Q: What about the two of you working together this time?
Colin: Well, the second time you have a shorthand and everything's much easier. You cut to the chase much quicker and I found it delightful to watch a character that was now familiar to me. It gave me a lot for nothing really.

Q: Do you share any characteristics with Darcy? Who would win in a fight between you and Hugh Grant?
Colin: The second one, obviously it would depend on who you ask. We haven't put it to the test. I would say judging by Hugh's apparent level of physical strength while we were engaged in the fight and the number of times he asked for the nurse, I think there’s no doubt in my mind really. No, I can assure you I've never folded a pair of underpants in my life.

Q: Have you had any odd encounters with fans from doing Bridget Jones?
Colin: My life has been largely taken up with weird encounters. They're not particularly anecdote-worthy. They're just people very often, and they're polite usually. These don't take the form of propositions or psychotic belief that you really are the character that you're playing. They're people who obviously identify very heavily with a female character and we are devices seen through her eyes. It's quite interesting to be in that position because very often it's not that way. the sexual roles are reversed in cinema conventions. It's much more often the male protagonist and the women the device. And we are I suppose somewhat archetypal. In that way it's resulted in the fact that we remain the archetype, we remain something that was deliberately created in the eyes of a woman who wrote a book, gained through the adaptation and through the eyes of a central character. All of them are female, directed by a female.

Q: In the book, Bridget Jones interviews Colin Firth. Was this scene considered for the film? Would you play a dual role like that?
Colin: No, it starts to get confusing. No, there was never any talk of Colin Firth appearing as a character. That wasn't contemplated for even a second. In fact, when the contract was being negotiated for Bridget Jones's Diary four years ago, I remember when they were discussing the option for the sequel, which was part of the contract, I think my agent said to whoever was at the other end of this, who, "If there is a sequel, who will play Colin Firth?" And there was a long pause at the other end of the phone, and the woman said, "We'll call you back." They called Kit about a half an hour later, saying, "There are currently no plans to feature a character named Colin Firth." There were discussions of creating a version of that interview using some other figure. It didn't have to be, it could be anybody really. Bridget Jones interviews someone, a celebrity. And they toyed with versions of it. It eventually went by the wayside. It was a nice conceit.

Q: So she lands in the pigsty instead?
Colin: That was the replacement. I became a pigsty, yes.

Q: What was the experience of working on set with Renee?
Colin: She makes it terribly easy for everybody basically. On two fronts, is on a personal level, if you're a leading actor, you are enormously responsible for the tone on a shoot in terms of the level of peace and happiness and harmony. And the leading actor can make literally all the difference. It doesn't matter what anyone else is like. If that person's a shit, then the whole thing's just a struggle. She was actually ridiculously generous. I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen punctuality like it. I've never seen devotion to off-camera performance, which is essential. To have someone who's that talented is obviously useful to us all. It reflects well on you. It makes you raise your game. But if that very, very talented person is not giving you very much once they're off camera, their use becomes limited. She gives as much off camera as [on]. If she was crying in a scene on camera, she'd do it again off camera. She would do it for the cutaway to Uncle Bob. She'd be there no matter what, no matter how jetlagged from her trips around the world. She's incredibly busy. This sounds like a gush, but it was so astonishing to all of us that we were gobsmacked by it really. She was even off camera -- this is going back four years now -- but she was even off camera, after three weeks of night shoots, about five o'clock in the morning when she could have gone home, for a shot on my feet. "My feet don't need you. This is fine." "No, no, no. I'll be here. It makes a difference. It makes it real." And so that's what we're talking about. It was good-natured, involved with everybody on the unit no matter what their role was. Film is a very hierarchical environment. The pecking order is very strong. People can profit from that. In all sorts of negative ways. She made it very egalitarian. It was wonderful.

Q: Can you discuss what you and Kevin Bacon were doing?
Colin: This is a film Where the Truth Lies. It's from a novel of that name by Rupert Holmes. It's a little hard to pitch. It's set in the U.S. and it goes from 1959 to 1974. It cuts between those two eras. It's about an entertainment duo in the '50s. We're a fictional, legendary entertainment duo and their peccadilloes and their involvement with sex, drugs, the Mafia, and how it all gets out of hand. Eventually, it leads to the death of a woman in a hotel room. And it's never resolved. It's a big mystery, and then cut to 1974 where this investigative journalist on the case trying to find out why the actors broke up and who killed this woman and were they involved. That's basically the mystery of it.

Q: Are you the journalist?
Colin: The journalist is a woman. And I'm one of the two. Kevin Bacon and I play the act.

Q: And how do you find Atom Egoyan?
Colin: I find him absolutely fantastic. A lot of freedom. He has a very, very strong idea of how much he wants. He doesn't over-cover things. He knows exactly how he wants to shoot it. He doesn't protect himself with endless coverage. He just knows how he wants the scene to be revealed, depends on his actors and works with them very specifically. Sometimes you have a slightly adversarial relationship with your director. And that can be a good thing. I mean, it can be a stimulating, slightly contentious relationship. Atom doesn't work like that. He does it very gently. You have enormous regard always for his intelligence. So there's always a big listening relationship. He tends to work by watching what you do, finding something that interests him, even if it's just a speck of what you've shown him, and then expanding that.

Q: And you're working with Emma Thompson now?
Colin: Yes. It's something she wrote for children. It's called Nanny McPhee. She's the nanny. She's in it as well.

Q: So you're the father of the kids the nanny is taking care of?
Colin: That's right.

Q: Do you take part in the special effects or are you out of that?
Colin: No, I'm sort of out of that. I'm a makeup artist in a funeral parlor. I make up corpses.

Q: Are you taking a break after that?
Colin: After the film? I don't know yet. It depends on how long the break will be. I might.

Q: Will you work with Richard Curtis again?
Colin: I like Richard and I think Richard wants to strike out to new territory. So if he did call again, I'd think it'd be something different, interesting.

Q: No more comedies?
Colin: It might end up something comical. I don't know. I little bit of a dramatist.