Colin Firth (20 page)

Colin remembered watching the play in Southampton as a lad, and feeling rather inadequate when he failed to find it funny.

‘I saw it as a teenager in a repertory theatre,’ he recalled on the US
Today
show. ‘It was rather a stiff production and in the way you normally see Oscar Wilde represented, which is actors composing their faces to look droll and playing to well-informed laughter. Actually, you’re sitting there thinking, “I’m supposed to find this funny. If I’m smart, I find it funny.” But you’re sort of slightly shut out from it. When I read it, I howled with laughter. So I always felt there was a slight discrepancy.’

The cast for the film included Dame Judi Dench in the iconic role of Lady Bracknell, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Massey, Edward Fox and American star Reese Witherspoon, who was cast as Jack’s young ward. Colin was drawn by the Wildean wit and the stellar company.

‘You can’t get better writing if you’re looking for light comedy and it’s pretty much a pinnacle of English wit,’ he said on set. ‘When you ask me what attracted me about this, it’s
irresistible. I can’t imagine anybody saying no to an offer to be among these people. There isn’t one person in the cast who isn’t absolutely first rate, 100 per cent best at what they do. It’s fantastic.’

Saying yes to the project did cost Colin one important date in his diary though. He had become a devoted fan of Arsenal since his turn in
Fever Pitch
and in May he was delighted that his beloved team made it through to the FA Cup Final. But the match was to be held in Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium and Colin was required on set in London. ‘Colin can’t believe he is not able to attend the game – he loves Arsenal with a passion,’ said his agent. ‘But he has filming commitments in London. He is hoping to take a big break in the afternoon – starting at about 3 p.m.!’

On the day, the Gunners lost 2-1 to Liverpool, no doubt giving Rupert Everett plenty to rib Colin about on set. And the banter stepped up a notch when a scene called for them to serenade Cecily and Gwendolen – and Colin produced the reviled guitar.

‘I did study the guitar part, hoping that some kind of ability on the guitar might make up for my vocal shortcomings,’ Colin remarked. ‘But I’m afraid it didn’t.’

Visiting actress Reese let slip an insight into the relationship between Rupert and Colin at the film’s New York premiere the following year. They had managed to get over their differences, she suggested, by bitching about everyone else. ‘I already knew that Rupert Everett and Colin Firth are both renowned in the business for being catty,’ she said. ‘Their big game on set was always trying to get Dame Judi Dench involved in their bitching. They would start talking about people in the business, and continually ask her what she thought of them.’ Dame Judi would not be easily drawn. ‘She would put on this imperious voice and just say, “I’m not having anything to do with this at all.”’

In later interviews, however, Colin claimed Reese was far more serious on set than the formidable Dame Judi. ‘It may be shocking to some people, but a lot of the American actors I’ve worked with are far more disciplined than Judi Dench,’ he said. ‘Judi has a terrible sense of mischief, and sometimes you’re lucky to get beyond three lines of dialogue without her cracking up with laughter. Of course, she’s very sure of her own discipline, which is why she’s free to have fun. But I found that American actors are intensely disciplined and extremely hard-working.’

Reese did her best to fit in with the largely British cast but revealed that the leading men frequently turned their mischievous humour on their American co-star. ‘You have to hold your own around Rupert and Colin because they’ll give you a hard time,’ she told the
Mirror
. ‘They’ll run you into the ground if you let them, so I was constantly having to stick up for myself around. I was the youngest, so naturally they picked on me. They would tease me about my accent and going to Hollywood premieres. They would say they had read terrible things about me that morning in the newspapers. They had me going all day once. I was terribly upset and trying to track down the paper.’

The rivalry works on screen in the stream of barbed banter as well as a playful tussle over a crumpet at afternoon tea. On one occasion the clashing actors even got carried away while picking bluebells in the woods. ‘We picked bluebells together and started to argue, and then it got physical,’ said Colin to the
Hollywood Reporter
. ‘I scrunched his bunch of bluebells, and then he pushed me over.’

‘They are like The Odd Couple, completely different guys but very comfortable with each other, and that comes across in the film,’ said producer Barnaby Thompson in the
Sunday Express.

Asked in interviews about their previous rift, Colin initially insisted that ‘This time everything was fine’.

‘Even though there was an eighteen-year gap, there was a bizarre familiarity immediately,’ he told the
Express
in 2002. ‘I do remember a strange look of recognition between us when we met again. We were a bit like an old married couple.’

And although he admitted they hadn’t got together since, he said there were plans to do so and that the relationship now had ‘social potential’. In February 2003, during a press conference in his adopted city of Rome, he appeared to be saying the feud was still alive and well. However, as he conducted the interview, impressively, in Italian, a mix-up over tenses may have appeared in the translation.

‘Personally I’ve never been able to stand Rupert very much,’ he reportedly told the gathered European journalists. ‘But on set we managed to get on really very well. Rupert and I hate each other because we are basically very different. I find him a frightfully sophisticated person. He’s improved a little with age; he’s certainly not become more serious but more tolerant.’

In another interview he expressed irritation that Rupert had revealed their earlier rows. ‘We didn’t take to each other, but this is a story that I would have never revealed to the public if he hadn’t done so during the promotion of the film in the States.’

The two actors would bury the hatchet for good six years later, when Rupert asked Colin to star in his pet project, a remake of
St Trinian’s
.

I
N
A
2002
interview set up by
Vogue
magazine, Colin and
Earnest
co-star Rupert Everett fired questions at each other. Colin joked that his midlife crisis meant he was ‘dreaming about Harley Davidsons, Botox and Britney Spears’.

Asked whether he would like a knighthood, he replied, ‘While I think a knighthood is inevitable in the next year or so, I think I’m going to have to decline on grounds that it might make me seem a bit old and spoil my chances with Britney. Twenty years’ time would be fine.’

He also revealed that life had changed since
Bridget Jones’s Diary
because ‘I’ve changed a lot more diapers since it was released, and I get a lot more upgrades’.

Although he was merely joking, the last answer had a ring of truth. Colin was heading up the A-list yet again and the movie industry was sitting up and taking notice.
The Importance of Being Earnest
producer Barnaby Thompson
noted, ‘In the same way that
Four Weddings
put Hugh Grant on the film map,
Bridget Jones’s Diary
has finally done it for Colin Firth.’ The man who often claimed, ‘Hollywood has resisted me’, was rendered irresistible by the runaway success of the movie. And this time Colin appeared to be warming to the idea.

‘I don’t consider Hollywood stardom to be the pinnacle of what one needs to aspire to in life,’ he insisted. ‘But I’m sure it’s very pleasant and if I’m forced to go that way, I’ll probably come quietly.’

As Colin considered a whole raft of offers, he was forced to cancel a much-lauded return to the role of Hamlet, the dithering Dane who had helped launched his career back in drama school. The production, due to tour Oxford, Malvern and Cambridge before settling in the intimate setting of London’s Riverside Studios, was to be directed by his mentor Christopher Fettes and would run from January to March 2002. At the time of the announcement in December 2000, he declared it his last chance to tackle the role. ‘I was beginning to wonder if it had passed me by. Albert Finney said you should play it at twenty or forty, but I think Hamlet’s thirty. By my own theory, I’m ten years too old, but I’m itching to do it.’

Colin reluctantly pulled out in July 2001 and explained, ‘My worst fears were fulfilled when my filming schedule for early next year changed, meaning I would have to withdraw from Concentric Circles’ production of
Hamlet
. We are now exploring other possibilities of working together in the future.’

Such was the excitement surrounding Colin’s name that he was among the top three actors named in newspapers’ speculation about the next James Bond. He took the reports with a pinch of salt, saying only, ‘I love the idea. I’d go for it, absolutely. But it’s probably not coming my way.’

Sadly, he was right. What did come his way was a romantic comedy, set in New England, and based on a book by Charles Webb, the man behind
The Graduate.
Although many billed
Hope Springs
as a Hollywood movie, it was actually the work of three British production companies, including Fragile Films, who owned the revived Ealing Studios, and Prominent Features, the team behind
A Fish Called Wanda
and
Brassed Off.
With
Little Voice
director Mark Herman at the helm, it was an American tale with a distinctly British feel.

The leading character, who is actually called Colin, is a buttoned-up English artist who discovers he’s been dumped when his girlfriend sends him an invitation to her wedding. He escapes to a small town in New England to mend his broken heart where a local hotel owner introduces him to a local girl. Mandy (Heather Graham) is as wild as he is repressed and she, in turn, shows him how to loosen up and enjoy himself. The inevitable romance is complicated when the ghastly ex, played by
Circle of Friends
co-star Minnie Driver, shows up in the hope of a reunion.

The book was first brought to Colin’s attention by Nick Hornby, who thought he would be perfect for a lead in the film. ‘The novel’s brilliant,’ said Colin in
Vogue
. ‘It’s about a guy, an Englishman, who shows up in a tiny town in New England called Hope, in a desperate state. A couple of friends of mine had spotted it and thought of me. I’m really thumbs-up about this one. The character’s even called Colin. It did sort of feel like it was waiting for me to step into somehow.’

Playing his namesake for the first time, Colin reflected that his given moniker was actually rather dull and, frankly, a little silly. ‘Well it doesn’t exactly have a ring to it, does it?’ he
said in
Real
magazine
.
‘It’s more the sort of name you’d give your goldfish for a joke. In fact, I saw an episode of
Blackadder
the other day and there was a dachshund in it called Colin. It seems that his name alone was supposed to reduce you to fits of laughter. It has the double disadvantage of being considered commonplace, dreary and banal and, at the same time, not common at all. So I have this commonplace, dreary, banal name, but there is nobody else to share my fate. There are very few Colins around.’

Still plagued by the shadow of his smouldering Austen hero, he added, ‘When the credits roll, I’m thinking of having it billed as “Colin was played by Mr Darcy” just so people will know who I really am.’

Although set in New England, filming actually took place in British Columbia, where Colin had once lived with Meg Tilly, in November and December 2001. Meg still had her main home in the Canadian province and the couple had remained good friends. This happy coincidence meant that Colin got to spend more time with eleven-year-old Will during the two months he was there, and even celebrate Thanksgiving in November. The devoted father maintained that the two boys always came before work. ‘My life revolves around my two boys. Everything else matters less.’ And, with his extended family now dotted between America, England and Italy, the location of each shoot had now become a crucial part of his decision-making process.

‘I’m trying to make choices for home and stability,’ he said to
The Times
in 2002.
‘If I need to visit my elder son in California, I can afford it. I still don’t have a fixed pattern of when I can see him: I have to make that time, choose not to work then.’

The trip brought back memories of his time in their
wilderness retreat and he said he identified with the ‘confused, bewildered middle-class Englishman adrift in North America, which has definitely been me’.

As it came from the same pen as the now classic Dustin Hoffman movie
The Graduate
,
Colin said he would be delighted if it was even ‘half as good’.

‘It’s not entirely without parallel,’ he pointed out. ‘There’s a sophisticated, jaded woman who sabotages the guy’s chances with the fresh, innocent hope for the future. There’s even a scene where someone spontaneously takes their clothes off in front of me.’

That very scene caused something of a headache for director Mark Herman, who found out, on the day, that Heather Graham was not prepared to go topless. At a press conference for the film, he told journalists that in her ‘last two or three films she didn’t seem to have any problems with that part of the contract but suddenly on ours she did. It actually caused a nightmare to shoot and she turned up on set with nipple plasters and so on.’