Cinema Voice Interview with Colin Firth Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason       [English translation by Wowow Online as published]

How did you want to portray this character differently from the first movie?

Well, it wasn't a question of portraying the character differently, the character had to be the same man because it's suppose to take place only four weeks later. Umm...the question was taking the same man and putting him in different experiences. This is seeing him inside the relationship and uh...and how difficult that is for him because he's emotionally little bit dysfunctional. He's unable to express himself and that was the situation we were exposing him to.

Right, so I have an impression of you as gentleman and very intelligent and I think this character has that element too. As you said he has a strong passion inside him but he doesn't show that lightly as Daniel and he's kind of neat and tidy...folds everything (meaning underpants). Do you have any similarities with this character?

I don't have his fastidiousness I don't fold my underpants (smiles) and I'm not emotionally as reserved as he is. I couldn't be an actor if I was. I have tended to play parts like that but acting involves being very closely engaged with your emotions and I think that is probably the most significant difference between us. Yes, culturally I'm conditioned in much the same way that he was. Mark Darcy is not unlike the previous generations of my family. That kind of reserved and that kind of belief in dignity and decency is something that has pass down to us traditions of Englishness and is something which I think made relationships very very difficult. I think that the problem with having a relationship with someone like Mark Darcy is that in order to know he loves you, you have to wait for a big gesture. You have to wait for um....some sort of grandiose proof, you find it very difficult if you want daily showing in little things because it's not something that he finds very easy so.

So, you've gained more fans with this film here in Japan. Is he any special character for you in any way?

Mark? Well yes he is special because I've spent so much of my life now living with him. It began with Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prigedis" many years ago. Since then there's been kind of echoes of that. I know that this character exist in other peoples' minds possibly more that do in mine actually. But um... there's no question about is there's no part that I played which has had so much connection with other people so, yes in some ways I suppose he's become as part of me.

I would like to ask some questions about you. You've decided to become an actor when you were 14. How and what made you decide to become an actor?

Story telling, I thing is still is my most fascination. Story telling can be novels, it can mean telling stories to children and it can mean journalism, it can mean hearing your friend telling what happened today. I have always been fascinated with how effects and how feelings are represented and how people express those. And as a child, I liked nothing more than hearing stories, I used to write stories as a child as well. And I think that those are my greatest pleasures. And also, I loved fantasy, I loved suspending disbelief, I loved seeing what it felt like to pretend like someone else and understanding the world through other perspectives like that was rather like traveling and I also like getting lots of attention (smiles) so, this combination meant that I always felt very very alive if I was performing.

I know this is a sudden question, but what is your motto, the philosophy that you live by?

I don't think I have a very strong and disciplined specific philosophy. I don't subscribe to any particular religion or creed, I don't have particular singular philosopher that I would follow. But I think the, I suppose the things that appeal to me the most have been those that express tolerance, which accept contradictions and paradoxes that one thing can be true and mostly opposite can be true in many ways. And which allows for laughter and irony and humor. My mother is someone who suited and taught in comparative religions around the world so I've always accumulated bits that I liked from various things but I thing that anything that is to do with degree of acceptance and understating of probably always going to have to have more questions really than answers. I think that if you could live with that then you can probably certain amount of peace in your life.

Were there any specific moments in your life that you found it was a turning point for you or changed the way you think or changed your life?

I suppose one of the greatest impacts of my life was the year that I spent in United States when I was about 13 for many reasons. One is because I met such diversity of people in that country. But also we've traveled across that country and I think it was my first experience of dramatic landscape, it was my first time I'd seen real mountains, it was my first time I'd seen desert and it gave me very strong spiritual feeling at very young age and I've felt very closely connected with that country for that reason. I think when you were 13, all sorts of things are shifting and changing with anyways so I came back feeling very different from that experience.

So, finally could you face the camera and give messages to WOWOW viewers?

Hello everybody of WOWOW, this is Collin Firth. I'm very very happy to be here in Tokyo and I hope you enjoy the new Bridget Jones film.