The Wanted
Man
Colin Firth, actor, mum's
heartthrob, fair-trade
activist.
Thirty films, including seven in the
last two
years alone.
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In his high, stiff collar
and tight
breeches, Colin Firth was smolderingly glandular as Mr. Darcy in the
1995
BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that one could only
assume
he was another English pretty boy, destined for lesser Merchant Ivory
films
and B-picture period romances made with Italian financing. But from The
English Patient onward, he has demonstrated a willingness to play
cuckolds,
schlimazels and conflicted guys—especially recently, in movies as
disparate
as Love Actually, What a Girl Wants (as Amanda Bynes's dad!),
and
the Bridget Jones pictures—that has broadened the public
perception
of him and somehow served to make him still more appealing to his
female
admirers. (And he did get to smolder, for old times' sake as Vermeer in
Girl
with a Pearl Earring.) He modestly ascribes his success to his
"neutrality,"
but "versatility" might be a better word.
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