In a 1996 interview
for Vogue, a 30-something
Colin Firth found himself inevitably discussing his recent and stratospheric launch into heartthrob status.
It was, as writer Rhoda Koenig noted, thanks in no small part to his portrayal of the brooding, occasionally
wet-shirted Mr. Darcy in the BBC’s Pride
and Prejudice the previous
year.
“Women have been naming their babies Darcy, buying Mr. Darcy-ish garments for their
boyfriends,” Koenig wrote. “The BBC itself auctioned one of the film's famous frilly shirts for charity,
inviting women to take ‘a last look at the shirt they longed to undo.’”
Firth’s response?
“I
can’t understand it,” he said. “I’ve never tried harder not to be sexy in my life.”
A
typical quip from the self-effacing actor — but also a fitting one: Firth has brought a similar
effortlessness to his nearly three-decade-long film, TV and stage career. Whether playing an unhinged
cinephile, a love-bitten Darcy (three times!) or a swashbuckling Roman general, the now 50-year-old
Englishman moves seamlessly from drama to comedy and everything in between.
Last month Firth earned his biggest accolade yet, picking up the Best Actor Oscar for
his role as stuttering monarch George VI in The King’s
Speech. But anyone who’s followed his career trajectory will know his nuanced, varied
performances have been winning over audiences and critics alike for years. Lifestyle
takes a look back at some of Firth’s most memorable onscreen roles — and a peek at
what’s in store.
Firth in School: Firth made his film
debut in Another Country (1984), an
adaptation of the award-winning London play he headlined the year before. Loosely based on the early life of
Soviet spy Guy Burgess, the movie was set at a 1930s English public school and starred Rupert Everett as “Guy
Bennett” (a role both Everett and Firth played onstage) and Firth as his Marxist school chum Tommy Judd. More
than 20 years later, the two would be back in school — this time as a besieged bureaucrat and
headmistress-in-drag, respectively — in the raucous comedy St. Trinian’s
(2007).
Firth as Veteran: A Month in the
Country (1987) saw Firth take on his first lead role in a film, alongside Kenneth Branagh and
Natasha Richardson. As a haunted First World War veteran seeking solace, and perhaps finding love, in the
idyllic rural community of Oxgodby, Yorkshire, he earned an Evening
Standard award nomination. Firth played a battle-scarred soldier of a different kind in BBC TV’s
Tumbledown (1988), portraying
the real-life Lt. Robert Lawrence MC, who lost almost half of his brain and was partially paralyzed after
being shot in the head by an Argentine sniper in the Falkland War. For his complex performance he won a Royal
TV Society award for Best Actor.
Firth Goes Dark: Forget the
archetypal “English gentleman”; Firth has never been averse to plumbing the sinister depths of the soul. In
the Hitchcockian thriller Apartment
Zero (1988), he was the tightly wound owner of a Buenos Aires revival house who forms a
twisted bond with his roommate, with deadly results. “I like playing strange characters,” Firth told
Premiere magazine in 1989.
“Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler
than that: Normal people are just not very interesting.” Firth took another walk on the wild side in the
NC-17-rated Where the Truth Lies (2005), teaming up
with Kevin Bacon to play a Martin and Lewis-like 1950s comedy duo with a grim secret.
Firth as Darcy: With one swandive,
Firth cemented his place in the pantheon of mid-’90s British dreamboats. His role as Fitzwilliam Darcy in
BBC’s Pride and Prejudice TV adaptation (1995)
is still widely regarded as the definitive version of Jane Austen’s aloof, status-obsessed protagonist with a
sensitive side. Of course, it also included the now-famous scene of a fully clothed Darcy emerging from
a lake after a midday swim.
Firth as Darcy… Again: Things would get
seriously meta with Bridget Jones’s
Diary (2001), in which Firth — who is the titular heroine’s celebrity crush in the
original-source novel, which is itself based on Pride and
Prejudice — played Mark Darcy, Bridget’s thorn in side-turned-love interest. "If you think
about it, I suppose I am playing somebody who's based on a character in a book who's based on a role that I
played who's based on a character in a book,” Firth cracked in a Today Show
interview that year. He would reprise his role in the sequel, Bridget Jones’s
Diary: The Edge of Reason (2004).
Firth as Music Man: More than an acting
powerhouse, Firth has proven his vocal chops in several films. In The Importance of
Being Earnest (2002), he and perennial co-star Everett serenaded their lady loves in Victorian
London with a duet of “Lady Come Down.” The two also covered “Love is in the Air” for the credits of
St. Trinian’s. More recently Firth
got musical for the Mamma
Mia! big-screen adaptation (2008), a project he described thusly: “If you are the kind of person who always wanted to see middle-aged men in tight spandex
trying to sing, then this is the film for you.”
Firth as Action Star: The actor traded in
the tight breeches and starched shirts for a sword and shield in The Last Legion
(2007), a period epic set in AD 470 during the last days of the Roman Empire. As the
seasoned Roman general Aurelius, Firth was unshaven, wild-haired, and no less adept at making the ladies
swoon — in this case, Aishwarya Rai’s warrior heroine Mira — as he set out on a quest to ferry the young
Romulus Augustus to safety.
Firth Crowned: A year after earning
an Oscar nod for A Single Man, featuring his
quietly affecting portrait of a 1960s professor grieving the death of his partner, Firth finally got his Best
Actor prize for The King’s Speech (2010). To
capture George VI’s stammer, he watched archival footage of “Bertie” speaking and worked closely with a voice
coach. His overall performance was praised as authentic and moving, yet understated. “Colin is delicate,” his
English Patient director Anthony
Minghella told The Guardian in 1996. “Is that the
same as subtle?” asked the interviewer. To which he replied: “Subtlety is nothing to do with acting —
it’s how you put your fingers down on the piano keys — he’s delicate.” Fifteen years later, it seems that
Oscar voters agree Firth still has that magic touch.
Firth in the Near Future: Next for Firth is the
spy thriller Tinker, Tailor,
Soldier, Spy, an adaptation of
the John le Carré novel that is due to hit theatres at the end of 2011. He is also teaming up with Cameron
Diaz for Gambit, a remake of the
1966 caper comedy starring Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine as a mismatched pair of con artists. The Coen
Brothers-scripted film begins shooting in May in London. •
Photo credit: Nicolas Genin/Flickr
