Darcy Returns in Bridget Jones's Diary British
sex symbol Colin Firth became a star following his pivotal turn as the
cool Mr Darcy in the TV version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
Now, in the eagerly anticipated screen version of Bridget Jones's Diary,
Firth plays another Darcy, reluctantly falling for the film's pudgy
central character (Renee Zellweger). For Firth, this movie affords the
classically trained Brit the chance to send up his famous literary
character. Adept at playing the proverbial stuffed shirt, it clearly an
unstuffy Mr Firth who talked to Paul Fischer in Los Angeles about the
two Darcies, coping with unexpected stardom and dealing with the British
press. A
little bit concerned. Concerns like that are answered by just accepting
it and doing it. It had to be a good script and had to be done in the
right spirit. As far as I'm concerned, the exercise was almost entirely
tongue-in-cheek. I
was having fun with it for my own sake. I didn't want to satirise the
FILM by satirising it and appropriate it for that reason. For it to work
as a romantic comedy, you have to invest something in it, but
nevertheless, the whole Darcy thing has followed me around to such an
extent now, that it has made far more sense to have fun with it than try
to vainly shake it off. The
business of acting is taking parts of yourself and reorganising them a
little bit. You take some very gregarious and passionate aspects of your
character, put a mask on it and see how that comes out. I find the
results of that kind of thing rather interesting. I think those
conflicts and paradoxes in people ARE fascinating; you know, the unhappy
clown or the little speck of good in the cruel person or the reserved
man who's in fact passionate. I think those things ARE fascinating and
very polemic to the English. I
was neither aware of it nor would I have any tolerance with that, I
think it's absolutely ridiculous. She's a good actress, which is far
more important than actually finding out where you were born. I know
there IS an issue of being specific about a culture, but if someone has
a talent for acting on the scale that SHE does, one of those talents is
the ability to recognise and appropriate a culture, other than her own. I
think that, again, there are all sorts of contradictions in that
relationship, and on the face of things, you'd think they were nearly
opposite: He has poise where she has none, he is pompous where she has
low self-esteem, he is taciturn, where she can't stop talking. But on
some level, I think they're quite similar. He recognises her agony in
certain social situations because he shares that, and I think he also
recognises her vulnerability. She's also wry about her own clumsiness,
which he finds appealing. No,
I did not decide to do that at all. What happened was, I was threatened
with the prospect of having to take my shirt off, which was a chilling
thought. So I thought that rather change profession, I will get a
trainer and try and do something about it. Actually, what was going to
happen was that during the fight scene with Hugh [Grant], it was going
to culminate with our shirts being ripped off from our rippling, sweaty
backs and have our dynamic torsos unleashed upon the female population
of the world and they would barely recover. It
was a delicious experience. Hugh will tell you that I fight like a girl,
which he's been saying a lot lately. All I can say in response, is that
it takes one to know one. He was the first one to pull my hair; I would
never have dreamt of doing that. And he scratches as well. So that
should give you an idea of HIS character. I
don't find myself sexy, and I don't have an erotic experience when I
look at myself in the mirror, or think about myself. But does anyone
find himself or herself sexy? Well
I DEVELOPED an image is what happened. I'd been working away in this
business, to my OWN satisfaction, for a very long time before that, and
I felt I was benefiting from an EVASION of an image, in that I didn't
think I had one. There
wasn't much to cope with. The media intrusiveness in terms of paparazzi
attention was intense, but brief. It was new to me and attached very
quickly to the fact that I was getting married, and I think I found it
threatening because of THAT. If it were to happen now, I think I'd take
it more in my stride, but I got paranoid, simply because I didn't want
paparazzi at my wedding; I didn't want my wedding day spoiled with THAT.
And they were absolutely determined to find out when and where I was
getting married and storm the wedding. So that was unacceptable. I
did by taking pains to do so, by not being overheard, not talking on the
telephone; you get paranoid. No,
but it's because of that I enjoy Italy very much; I'm completely unknown
there which I take great pleasure in. My
favourite spot is in Umbria. I
have mixed feelings actually. I often find that if I'm at an airport and
I want to and I want to read a magazine, however destructive it might be
about projecting images that women might feel they might have to conform
to, they are usually fairly free from racism and sexism and abhorrent
political polemics that I cannot stand. But for that reason if you're
trying to avoid English tabloid newspapers... True,
but we have some truly noxious press in my country, and I think that the
women's magazines are very harmless by comparison. I mean we had 15
journalists who came to Italy for our wedding and threatened and bribed
the 'Portiere' of our flat in Rome. Abhorrent stuff. Less
now. Basically if I enjoyed the interview and I fell that the journalist
is a sensible person, then I might be inclined to have a look. But it's
like reading about someone else, so it's almost not worth bothering.
Even when the person is intelligent and well disposed, it's difficult to
read what's written about you; it always FEELS reductive, because you
don't ever feel that you could be defined in that particular way. Very
often it's going to be wildly inaccurate. Sometimes
it's just EXTRAORDINARY fabrication. One
paper serialised my LIFE after I did Pride and Prejudice and there was
hardly anything in it that bore ANY relationship to my life. I remember
friends of mine phoning me up and saying: I didn't know this and that
about you. Part of this was they invented a story about a passion I
supposedly had with an actress who I never knew and never met. They said
I knew her but I didn't know her from Adam. Don't
remember meeting and falling in love? Maybe not. The trouble is denying
something like that just makes you seem terribly ungallant. That
has to get the most resounding 'no comment'. Because
I don't know if they're going to make one, I don't know if I'd be well
disposed to it or not. The possibilities are endless. Do
you have plans to work more in the US? No,
I don't have plans to work more in the States, though I'm open to it.
America to me is a foreign country with an abundantly fertile film
industry and of course I would love to profit from that. In one way or
another, but I'm not going to cut off any ties and come here to seek
work, because what I get from home, serves me well. A
film version of The Importance of Being Earnest is going to start next
month. Yes, at the end of this year I'll be involved in an independent production of Hamlet. |