The 2011 Time 100: Colin Firth
By Helen Mirren
There are two Colin Firths, who live symbiotically within each other. First is a man of principle, action and compassion, who fights for the powerless. Second is a beloved actor in Britain and an international film star.
The two sides of Colin, 50, inform each other. He can be the glamorous celebrity, but look closely at photos of him on the red carpet: there is a kindness in his eyes, an introspection and consideration. He actively pursues a deeper understanding of the world around him, and his humanitarianism gives a depth and wisdom to his performances.
As Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Colin underplayed the attractiveness of that character. Here was a man locked away within himself but with great personal standards and morality. It was a performance that made women of all ages swoon. As George VI in The King’s Speech, he revealed the vulnerability and sense of inadequacy that can be found even in the high and mighty. Colin’s innate decency, self-discipline and self-deprecation make him into the archetypal Englishman. His kind, thoughtful, passionate soul makes him into Everyman.
Mirren won an Oscar for The Queen
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Firth Honoured With Walk Of Fame Star
The honors keep coming for actor Colin Firth – he’ll unveil the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next week.
The actor, who is an Oscars Best Actor favorite for his portrayal of King George VI in The King’s Speech, will be saluted outside Hollywood Boulevard’s British pub The Pig & Whistle next Thursday.
It has been a great year for the Brit – Firth won the BAFTA Award in 2010 for his performance in Tom Ford’s A Single Man, which also earned him nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
He also garnered the Performance of the Year Award at the 2010 Santa Barbara International Film Festival, as well as the London Critics Circle Film Award for British Actor of the Year.
Firth has been nominated for both a Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe honor this year for his portrayal of King George, which has already earned him the top acting prize from critics in Chicago, Illinois and Phoenix, Arizona.
 (1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) | Filed under Articles | Tags: 2011, Awards, Hollywood Walk of Fame |
Colin Firth: ‘Stammer the wrong way and it is comedic’
The King’s Speech, which opens on Friday and is tipped for Oscar honours, concerns the terrible struggle George VI had with his speech impediment when he came to the throne in 1936. Colin Firth, in a rare interview, and director Tom Hooper talk about the making of this deeply moving film
On the face of it, an entire film devoted to the subject of a speech impediment sounds risky – even when one learns that the stammer is a royal one, belonging to King George VI. Yet The King’s Speech has got off to a tremendous and triumphantly unjittery start. It has been feted in the US, crowned at the British Independent Film awards – as best British film (with honours for its actors and for David Seidler, who wrote the screenplay) – and has most recently won seven nominations for the Golden Globe awards. It now seems certain that Colin Firth will be an Oscar contender for his role as the King – a magnificent, subtle, affecting performance in which his pristine appearance is in contrast to the painful disarray of his speech.
| (No Ratings Yet) | Filed under Interviews | Tags: 2011, The King's Speech, Tom Hooper |
Colin Firth: ‘No experts on how to stammer’
Colin Firth has said that there are no experts on how to stammer.
The actor plays King George VI, who must overcome his speech disorder in Tom Hooper’s historical drama The King’s Speech.
Firth told The Daily Telegraph: “Stammering is its own problem. That’s a sense of dread you can feel in a room with one person – it’s a nervewracking business.
“There was some poll that put public speaking higher than death as a fear in the public’s minds… Jerry Seinfeld observed that that means if you go to a funeral, most people would rather be in the coffin than giving the eulogy.”
… Read the rest
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Colin Firth: interview
Admit it – many of us think Colin Firth is just bland, middle-class totty. And maybe he was, once. But, as Dave Calhoun has discovered, the former Mr Darcy has grown up and moved on, and in his latest films, he’s riveting
It crept up on me unexpectedly. For a number of years I’d dismissed him or avoided him or – shame on me – mocked him. Whenever I thought of Colin Firth, which admittedly wasn’t very often, I could only think of one word: bland. It didn’t help that he had an alarming following among the good women of middle England, many of whom seemed about to rip this mild-mannered fellow’s flowing white costume-drama blouse from his back and do unspeakable things to him. When I mentioned to a colleague that I was to interview Firth, a strange look came into her eyes and her voice quivered. It reminded me why Firth put me off my popcorn.
| (No Ratings Yet) | Filed under Interviews | Tags: 2008, Easy Virtue, Genova, Mamma Mia!, Mr. Darcy |