Colin Firth (29 page)

As always, Colin went into extensive research for the role and was touched by the character and predicament of the King. ‘I think he had a very, very vulnerable quality. He was a frightened man who had, I think, suffered abuse in his life in all sorts of ways and was not groomed for this job and was not expecting it,’ he said during a Canadian press conference.
‘His only job was to speak for the nation, on live radio – I mean, how cruel was that? There is no recording yet, there is no editing for radio – this is live to the Empire. You’ve got a war coming as well. You’re the guy who has to reinforce us all and lead us into war. Your adversaries are the best in the business – Hitler, Mussolini.

‘So that’s what he was facing and the stakes were very high. And because he was senior royalty he didn’t have any friends.’

George was also a loving family man, devoted to his two daughters, Elizabeth, the present queen, and Margaret. This, reflected Colin, was unusual in the royal household at the time.

‘This is a film about them as human beings,’ he said. ‘There was a tremendous amount of love between that father and those girls. His parents had been rather distant, to put it mildly, but he adored those children. When you look at pictures of the royal family operating, you see his parents standing there very rigid. He’s always looking at the girls. He’s holding them, he’s smiling, he’s taking pleasure in them.’

Colin had perfected a stammer for two previous roles, including
Three Days of Rain
, and practised day and night to get it right for
The King’s Speech
. He also spoke to his sister, Kate, a speech therapist, about Logue’s unorthodox methods and she helped him understand the psychology behind them.

‘He has an incredible brain, he’s a very clever man, so his command of the subject and Bertie’s story was formidable by the time we started shooting,’ said Tom. ‘He studied the way Bertie stammered very carefully and I think Colin is by nature a minimalist actor and it’s very interesting when you confront a minimalist actor with a role like this because you can’t be minimalist about stammering, you have to take it on. It’s been great to get Colin to go for capturing something which you can’t do by half measures and I think it’s a truly great performance.’

Tom remembers that his star faltered over his speeches while accepting awards for
A Single Man.
‘Colin went to an awards thing in the midst of production, and he completely stammered. He couldn’t speak,’ he revealed. ‘And I said, “That’s fantastic news.”’

This time it had a very real physical effect and took months to lose after filming was over. ‘It had an effect on my body – headaches,’ Colin explained to
The Guardian
. ‘I had to learn to stammer and then play someone trying desperately not to. It put my left arm to sleep – it was very peculiar. I
must have been locking something, pinching a nerve. It was a semi-paralysis that would last for three or four days.’ Co-star Derek Jacobi, who had taken on a speech impediment for
I, Claudius
,
dished out some welcome advice. He told Colin, ‘You could find it affecting your speech patterns for some time afterwards. When the job’s over, don’t worry, it will go away.’

The stammer was so convincing by the end that during filming of a crowd scene replicating Bertie’s disastrous address at the Empire Exhibition in 1925, he almost caused a revolt among the extras. ‘It was a cold, wet, drizzly day and we had reports coming back from the set that some of the extras were saying that they couldn’t believe an actor as great as Colin Firth couldn’t get his lines right!’ laughed Gareth.

Geoffrey Rush and Colin worked well together and became great friends on set. Shirley Firth remembered being at the Firth family home when the pair were busy rehearsing, which gave her an insight into her son’s methods. ‘We’d been in his house once when he and Geoffrey were going over a bit of it. We were in another room and the doors were shut, but we could hear everything. And they were saying “Would the King have said that? Would the therapist have said that?” and they were really working on how it would really have been. I was really impressed by this process. I was fascinated because it showed how two good actors can work together to explore the personalities concerned.’

The intensive research and physical effort paid off on the film’s release, which went worldwide in January 2011, after the initial festival Oscar-qualifying screenings in the US and the UK.

The Telegraph
called
The King’s Speech
‘Colin Firth’s crowning glory’ and added, ‘Firth’s vocal performance is
wholly believable, and he is absorbing throughout, out-plumbing the depths of isolation he achieved in
A Single Man
.’
The Guardian
’s Peter Bradshaw wrote ‘
The King’s Speech
proves there’s fizzing life in old-school British period dramas – it’s acted and directed with such sweep, verve, darting lightness. George VI’s talking cure is gripping.’ Universally praised, there was instant talk of Oscars and, as the award season warmed up with the Screen Actors’ Guild awards, the Golden Globe nominations and the BAFTA list, the gold statuette looked ever closer to Colin’s grasp.

On 17 January he beat the previous year’s winner Jeff Bridges to a Best Actor Golden Globe and joked about the ‘robust triangle of man love’ between himself, Geoffrey and Tom, and called his Australian co-star his ‘friend and Geisha girl’.

Avoiding the usual gushing acceptance speeches, he told the star-studded audience, ‘Getting through the mid stage of your life with your dignity and judgement intact can be somewhat precarious. Sometimes all you need is a bit of gentle reassurance to keep on track. I’m not sure this could be described as gentle, but right now this is all that stands between me and a Harley-Davidson.’

A week later
The King’s Speech
achieved a massive twelve Oscar nominations and Colin was pitted against Jeff Bridges for
True Grit,
Jesse Eisenberg for
The Social Network
, Javier Bardem for
Biutiful
, and
127 Hours
star James Franco.

At the BAFTAs in February, the film scooped seven awards, including Best Supporting Actor and Actress for Geoffrey and Helena and Best Director for Tom. Colin, picking up his Leading Actor gong for the second year in a row, quipped ‘Thank you. I like coming here.’ And referring to the ‘fridge repairman’ speech of the year before, he continued,
‘Consistent with the fact that almost every important turning point in my life has hinged on the banal and the arbitrary, such things as broken kitchen appliances and unsent emails, the day on which I had to make my first meeting with Tom Hooper, I had to postpone a routine but possibly somewhat uncomfortable medical examination, and I am pleased to report that the meeting with Tom was a lot more edifying than the encounter that I had been anticipating.

‘But as the work went on, it became apparent that Tom’s working methods were every bit as thorough, as surprising and as effective as those of my doctor. So perhaps one never truly escapes one’s fate.’

By the time Colin walked down the red carpet at the Academy Awards, on 27 February, he had already added twenty-two new ornaments to his trophy cabinet. He was having trouble taking all the adulation in. At the pre-Oscar lunch he commented, ‘Obviously it’s elating but I have a feeling however this is going to percolate throughout the next year so I’ll probably punch the air in May and crack open a bottle of champagne in September.’

Mum Shirley was convinced her son would be a magnanimous loser if he didn’t come home with the award. If he won, she said, ‘He would be very pleased, but very philosophical if he didn’t get it. He would recognize that it had been given to someone who had been acknowledged as having great talent. Taking parts like this shows that he can be very daring – it was a big challenge to take on.’

On the night, both Colin and Tom were victorious. After nearly thirty years in the business, Colin finally had his hands on the coveted golden statuette. And the man used to playing emotionally repressed Englishman was getting emotional. Despite the tear in his eye, however, he managed to give a masterclass in succinct funny speeches.

‘I have a feeling my career’s just peaked,’ he said as he took to the stage. Then he joked, ‘I’m afraid I have to warn you that I’m experiencing stirrings somewhere in the upper abdominals which are threatening to form themselves into dance moves. Joyous as they may be for me, it would be extremely problematic if they make it to my legs before I get off stage.’ He thanked his co-stars and Tom Hooper before paying tribute to Livia for standing by him.

Back at home, friends and family watched with delight as the universally liked star received the honour. Kenneth Branagh, who couldn’t make the ceremony, revealed that Colin texted him minutes after the win.

‘We were jumping up and down for Colin, who is an old mate,’ he revealed. ‘The texts were ringing after that. It’s amazing, I don’t know how he did it but there were messages back almost instantly, and I’m sure there was to all his friends as well. It was really a thrilling night, his speech was really smashing and really clever.

‘I’m so fond of Colin. He’s a great guy so I’m thrilled. What’s nice is that he’s been recognized and he’s had a tremendous career as an actor, but it’s just nice when things come together. And that was a great enterprise. The whole film was a great piece of work. The Oscar would have come his way sometime and in the meantime he’s done lots of work which we all love.’

Gary Oldman, who was working with Colin on
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
, was equally delighted. ‘He’s a fantastic actor and a fantastic bloke,’ he said. ‘He really deserves the recognition he’s getting now. He’s great to work with – incredibly funny. He throws out these witty one-liners and has everyone on set laughing.’

It is testament to how well he and Will’s mum had
maintained a relationship that Meg Tilly, the day after the Oscar ceremony, took to her blog to state, simply, ‘Bravo! Happy, doesn’t even begin to describe it. There are those times in life when mere words just aren’t sufficient. This is one of those times.’

Colin was overwhelmed by the support and warmth his series of awards was greeted with. ‘It’s been amazing. The reaction of everybody, from the people who have supported me for thirty years, like my family and friends, to the general public, has been overwhelming. I can’t get over how wonderful everyone has been.’

And he revealed that the British public had helped him on the night. ‘It meant a lot to me, that feeling of people rooting for me at home. I actually wrote a speech and forgot it. And that was when it came to me, that support at home. I felt it – it was very important to me.’

Although she was over the moon to see her man pick up the most coveted prize in acting, Livia’s response was typically down to earth. ‘We’re not moving to Hollywood, we’re going back home and he’s still the man I married,’ she told
Grazia
. ‘He’ll still put out the bins and leave his socks on the floor. It’s just now he has an Oscar, and that is amazing.’

Since their first meeting, in South America, Livia has been used to ladies of all ages making eyes at her husband but the spirited Italian has nothing to worry about. Colin is not planning to go anywhere. ‘It does help to actually realize that however stunning the person who is, you know, fluttering eyelashes at you, she doesn’t do anything to match up to your wife,’ he said on a US chat show in February 2011. ‘Maybe it’s shallow of me to have a wife that’s so beautiful but it makes things easier. To me she’s the most beautiful woman
in the world. We’ve made it fifteen years together … I think that is pretty good going in Hollywood standards. And it’s going to go on for ever.’

Two weeks after flying home with his gong, which he dressed in miniature black and white pants for an appearance on the
Ellen DeGeneres Show
, Colin received news to keep that dazzling smile on his face. Son Will, who was hoping to follow in his famous father’s footsteps, had won a place at drama college in London. The twenty-one-year-old would be moving to London for three years, meaning Colin and the family would get to spend much more time with him.

Mum Meg’s blog announced, on 16 March, ‘Happy news! Everybody here is jumping up and down. I just got off the phone with my boy Will and he has been offered a spot in a great three year acting program in England. Hats off to you, honey! We are SO proud!’

Despite his Oscar-night gag about his career peaking, Colin has plenty more to give the world of cinema. With starring roles in John Le Carre’s
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
and the Coen brothers’ comedy
Gambit
in the pipeline, and many more offers on the table, the British star is much in demand. As a younger actor he might have wished for the critical status of Ralph Fiennes, or the box office pull of Hugh Grant, but he had played the long game, and won.

‘There is one quote – J.B. Priestley, I think – in which he says: “I have never been out of fashion, because I have never been in fashion” and that seems to sum me up,’ he once said. ‘I have been flavour of the month but never a number-one star. I have been second or third choice for things, too, and that is probably a safer area to be than bang on top of the mountain.

‘The result so far is that I’ve never been out of work from the day I left drama school. I have been stuck, because I have
not been able to find anything good. But that is different from being worried about not paying the rent or feeding the kids.’

As an added bonus
The King’s Speech
has finally rid him of the wet shirt and riding boots of the dashing Mr Darcy. From now on, his prefix will no longer read ‘
Pride and Prejudice
star’ but ‘Oscar-winner’.