Colin Firth
Colin Firth
Colin Andrew Firth, CBEis an English actor. Firth's films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide. Firth has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two British Academy Film Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup. Firth's most notable and acclaimed role to date has been his 2010 portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that earned him an Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth10 September 1960
CityGrayshott, England
Comedy - particularly the frothy and frivolous - is notoriously neglected by festivals and awards. But it's bloody hard to get right.
When I look in the mirror, I don't see my Dad, I see my grandmother. For a while it was my mother looking back at me. If only it was my Dad.
Sometimes to think about why some institutions are stable, it's interesting to go one generation back and look at the author of that stability.
Doing a job, or even watching a film, can make a difference to your life, but I don't think it ever has an explosive impact where your life will never be the same again. It kind of seeps into your life, and perhaps realise you're a little more vigilant about certain things than you might have been.
The great thing about dealing with people about whom we have historical resources, is that if the writing needs work, there's everywhere to go to enrich it.
I can actually get involved in getting stories off the ground that no one would ask me to be in because I'm the wrong age, the wrong sex, the wrong nationality, or whatever. I've found it quite exhilarating to have that freedom to tell the stories that aren't just about middle-aged white English guys.
Just driving I just was in a car on flat ground and I couldn't make it go. Having ticked driving and taken three driving lessons, I just was unable to produce any motion whatsoever under perfectly normal circumstances. I think we've all been busted on driving, and riding.
It's entirely to do with personality, I think. There are good directors who talk a lot, bad directors who talk a lot, and good directors who don't say much and vice-versa. It just depends on whether people respond to that personality and whether people have a willingness to do something for them.
Nothing brings you closer together than blind terror.
It was mainly to do with Helen Hunt, to be honest. That's what drew my attention to it. I was interested in the fact that she was going to be directing. I'd never met her but she projects a degree of intelligence and it was convincing t me that she'd be able to handle this sort of material very well.
If I were to write a book about the progress of getting to a third film, it would be a long one.
I have a great deal of respect for the craft, I don't know how much respect it has for me. But it's a precision process. Doing it on stage would be, I think, terrifying. Doing it on film has its own difficulties, because film is not conducive to spontaneity. You might have a run through and get a few chuckles at eight o'clock in the morning, but you don't keep laughing at the same thing all day long.
So, you don't have laughs as a reference point any more, it becomes a bit of a science after that. And the last thing, you would love to be able to depend on a sense of spontaneity, but hours of waiting and then hours of repetition are not conducive to spontaneity so those are your obstacles. On the other hand it's a lot of fun. Plunging into a bit of physical comedy and abandoning all dignity, no one can really hurt you much after you much after that, once you've done it.
Certainly, from where I stand, I'm not a specialist in wildly different walks and voices. But I find as much variation and nuance as what satisfies me in what I do. So, I don't find this particularly different. He has his own peculiarities. You're probably talking about a cluster of Englishmen in suits but I've done quite a big cluster of guys not in suits as well, which I've occupied myself with. So, I don't find that this is the one that stands out.