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: "Becoming a dad made a man of me" by Gabrielle Donelly (Reveal UK)

On the screen, he's every woman's romantic fantasy - the tall, handsome hero who makes everything all right in the end.
But, in real life, Colin Firth admits that it has taken him a considerable part of his 45 years to even become a proper adult.
 
"A lot of us actors grow up in a bit of a fantasy world, which can stunt our emotional growth," he confessess cheerfully.
 
"We all have imaginative worlds while we're children, and most people grow up and find their fantasy life dims a little bit als they have to deal with the realities of the world. But not us actors - we have to continue the fantasy in order to do our job."I know I grew up painfully slowly."
 
"I wasn't practical in any way and used to be untidy - really, I used to be quite chaotic. I just couldn't be bothered with what I saw as the boring realities of day-to-day life. In fact, I was quite proud of this because I felt it was a sign of loftier thoughts!"
 
What made Colin finally join the real world, he says, was becoming a father. "I can say definitely that no single event has changed me more than having a child," he admits. "It's the first thing to happen to me that I realised I couldn't go back on."
 
"Before I was a father, I alwasy had the rather juvenile attitude that everything I did was somehow undoable - that I didn't have to be absolutely, 100 percent committed to any of the things I said or did. I think that was an illusion because you are always committed to what you do - but nevertheless, it was what I believed."
 
"But when you have a child, it becomes very clear that this is a part of you that will be with you for a lifetime - no matter what. You can't walk away from it. Or, if you do,, then you do so at great cost."
 
Colin has three sons from two different relationships. Canadian actress Meg Tilly is the mother of htis eldest son, William, now 15. William divides his time between British Columbia, where Meg lives, and Britain, where he frequently visits Colin.
 
Then years ago, while making Nostromo - a BBC production of the epic Joseph Conrad novel - Colin met beatiful Italian documentary-maker Livia Giuggioli.

They married a year later and now have two sons, Luca, four, and Mateo, two. Being the father of three boys of varying ages means Colin has had to step into the real world with both feet.
 
He says:"I have had to learn to care about the real, practical world because it's the one I share with my children.
Much as I'd like to, I just can't take them into my imaginative world with me. They don't belong there, and it doesn't help them."
 
"As I can't  just sit around and wish them the life I want for them - I have to work to make it happen. If that is what growing up is, then that's what's been going on."
 
The Firths must juggle their lives skilfully to keep a balance of living together in London, visiting Livia's family in Italy whenever they are able to, and travelling wherever Colin happens to be making a film. The family has just returned from Slovakia, where Colin was filming his role as Aurelius in The Last Legion.
It's an adventure story set at the demise of the Roman Empire. Colin approvingly describes it as "a time of sex and violence from the beginning to the end!".
 
And, he says, while Mateo is too young to realise what Dad does for a living, Luca is now just about old enough to visit him on movie sets.
 
"He came to see me while I was making the film Nanny McPhee, but he didn't really have any concept of what we were doing there," Colin says.

"He seemed most interested in all the cameras and cables, so we have developed the idea with him that I work with cranes and heavy machinery. He did seem to like that thought, and I don't want to crush his idea that I do something manly with my life, instead of what I really do -  putting on costumes and make-up, and flouncing around in front of the camera!"

Interview thanks to Creamie