LOVE IT!
LOATHE
IT!
In our occasional series, actor
Colin Firth reveals
why he’s crazy about the US and hates TV soaps.
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Colin Firth returns to the
big screen
on 21st November in the romantic comedy Love Actually. The actor,
whose first role was playing Jack Frost in a school play at the age of
five and had lived in four different countries by his teens, shot to
fame
as Mr Darcy in a BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in 1995.
Music
I had piano lessons when I
was young,
and when my family moved to America, I started a band. I never
like
to be far from music. It can lift you up, pull you down,
entertain
you and change your attitude.
Laughter
I like practical jokes that
don’t
hurt anyone, and I like to hear laughter, whether it’s the sound of
children
having a good time, of friends enjoying an evening at a restaurant, or
an audience reacting to a joke at the theatre. There is nothing
quite
like laughter.
Sunshine
I love decent weather.
If
you’re feeling a bit low and it’s raining or overcast, you feel a whole
lot worse, but if the sun is shining, it can give you a totally
different
approach to the day
America
I like America because it’s
a country
with a positive attitude. Heroes are acclaimed and celebrities
are
allowed to be celebrities without being hounded by people seeking to
rubbish
them. In America, the glass is always half-full and there is
always
someone willing to help you up if you fall flat on your face—I like
that.
Judi
Dench
I am very careful when I
look at
a script, and it is rare that I agree to something that I later
regret.
But a lot depends on whom you are working with as well. For
example,
how you work with Judi Dench and not enjoy every minute of it?
Boarding
planes
As a child I grew up in
several
different countries because of my parents’ travelling. By the
time
I was in my teens, I had lived in Nigeria, India, America and
England.
They say that travel broadens the mind and it does, if you let
it.
It is wonderful to be able to board a plane and, within a few hours, be
in another country with a different culture to explore.
Rudeness
I don’t like it when someone
comes
up to me with a scrap of paper and a borrowed pen, and says, “Ere, sign
this.” I don’t mind being recognised or signing autographs, but
there
is a well-mannered way of asking which some people seem to forget.
Being
branded
a sex symbol
I once read about my having
“smouldering
looks”. I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever
read.
What exactly are smouldering looks? Everyone wants to be
considered
attractive, but I’ve never taken the sex symbol thing very seriously.
Mr
Darcy
I have a loathing of being
called
Mr Darcy. I played that part some years ago and I was very
pleased
with it, but I’ve been in many other productions since then. To
be
called by the name of one of your characters, rather than by our own
name,
can be a little testing.
TV
soaps
Soaps don’t do a lot for
me.
Some seem to be perpetually miserable, and I just don’t see that as
entertaining.
And you hardly ever get a happy ending because there is no ending—it
just
goes on and on!
Sore
feet
Not only is it uncomfortable
but
it reminds me of my early years of trying to make it as an actor.
I lived in a bedsit in North London and walked everywhere to save what
little money I had. My shoes constantly had holes in them, and
that
gave me sore feet. Now getting a stone in my shoe brings it all
back.
Prejudice
I detest bigotry, racism and
prejudice
of any kind. The diversity on this planet is something special, a
privilege to live with. We should live and let live in harmony,
with
respect for our differences.
Scruffiness
I went through a spell of
having
my hair extra long, wearing scruffy clothes and withdrawing into
myself.
I was broke at the time and couldn’t afford a haircut, but I think it
was
all part of life’s learning curve. It taught me not to allow
myself
to get into that kind of situation again.
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