Region 1 DVD (US) to be released Nov 11, 2002; can be preordered via The Boutique  here

Click for "Links" to online video interviews with cast members, including Colin

New Behind-the-Scenes Gallery

Images from VH1's Cast Party

Transcribed television and radio interviews:

• Breakfast with the Arts 
• All Things Considered
• Weekend Today Show
• The Today Show
• Live with Regis & Kelly
• The Daily Show

Colin:One of the things that amuses me about Victorian England as an idea—and Oliver Parker’s captured that in this film, is that all these corseted people, all these utterly kind of repressed and austere people were studying the classics, which featured nothing but sex, really.

Jim: (laughs) Yeah.

Colin: I mean, you’ve got naked maidens tied to trees...and the pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Jim: In the scene in the nightclub when your character, Jack, a country gentleman, goes into London, they’re all in there watching the dancing girls...

Colin: Exactly.

Jim: ... throw up their skirts, you know—

Colin: That was all going on, as well. I mean, it was a very, it was actually a very corrupt and decadent society. I mean, the Victorians were just as known, really, for all their perversions...as they were for their austerity.

Jim: You have Judith Dench, Tom Wilkinson, go right down the whole cast list. A very talented group of people you were working with.

Colin: Absolutely. This play, I think, is dependent on that. You’re not going to get anywhere if you can’t cast it well. It depends on actors. Bad actors are going to make those lines sound very rigid, and frosty.

Jim: The Importance of Being Earnest. Beautiful to look at, great acting, great sets, costumes. Can I say anything more except don’t miss this one. Thank you so much.

Colin: Thanks very much.

Call of the Wilde (Daily Mail, Aug 13, 2002)
The atmosphere on set was equally light-hearted—Dame Judi Dench would often play practical jokes, notably on Firth. ‘She described me as like a trout—I would bite on the first bait of a practical joke,’ Firth says. ‘One day we were all sitting in our trailer park having lunch in the rain. She had this bird of prey on her head. I thought, “Photo opportunity!” I went off for two seconds to get my camera but when I came back everyone had disappeared. She had managed to get three departments to hide behind the trailers.’

On the steps of the Palladian north front of the house, the lead actors are intoning a scene. Colin Firth, fresh from his triumph in Bridget Jones’s Diary, but still best known as Mr Darcy in the BBC’s version of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, is playing Jack Worthing, who is a good egg, if a little pompous. Jack himself could be a direct descendant of Mr Darcy, but there are no wet shirts in this production, just tight neckties. (Read complete on location article here)

Going Wilde in the Country (The Times, Aug 24, 2002)
The filming of The Importance of Being Earnest at a country house in Buckinghamshire proved almost as entertaining as the play itself, not least because the real-life sparring between the two leading men, Rupert Everett and Colin Firth.

“I don’t know, but I feel there is something archetypical about us that puts us together. Funnily enough, I don’t usually feel like the short one—I’m 6ft 2 in and it’s not often I’m looking up to someone and feeling like the little guy. But I swear Rupert’s grown in 18 years. I feel like I’m Ernie to his Eric or something. Actually, it’s even worse, I feel like Peter Glaze to his Leslie Crowther. You know, the little round angry man constantly frothing with the indignity of it all, that’s me, and he’s the tall, funny, languid fellow.” (Read complete background story  here)

Colin Firth Sings in Earnest (TV Guide Insider, May 22, 2002)
Attempting to woo his beloved in The Importance of Being Earnest—opening Friday—Colin Firth's character serenades her. Of course, we're dying to know: Was the handsome Brit crooning with his own voice in the film?

"I'm very flattered that you even ask [if it was me]," Firth  tells TV Guide Online. "If they got a professional voice in [instead], it would have sounded a lot better than that.

"I didn't really prepare very much except in my bedroom once or twice," the 41-year-old adds. "It was a fairly unprepared thing, but I think that was the spirit that was required. I was rather hoping it would all be dubbed!" Firth has a very different opinion when it comes to the vocal performance of co-star Reese Witherspoon—whose part calls for her to utter Oscar Wilde's witticisms with a British accent. "I certainly think that nobody could have been better in the role," he gushes. "We all had to make a bit of a reach... No one speaks like that. [The play]'s a hundred years old and most of us English people are fairly detached from that culture and that way of speaking now."

It's one thing for Brits to return to their roots, but can an American do it as well? "I think that the nationality and the origins of the person really come second," he asserts. "I'd rather she even got the accent wrong than have a perfect English rose who can't act."

In fact, Firth has a happy track record of acting opposite U.S. starlets playing UK beauties. Besides Witherspoon, he's also co-starred with Renée Zellweger in Bridget Jones's Diary and Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love. "Every time an American actress has come to do a film in England, I've usually been there in the film as well," he laughs. "So, I've always heard all the talk. But I don't know if there's really been a fuss about it. It may be more of a problem [in the States] than it is in England. We don't particularly care."

'Earnest' takes a walk on the Wilde side (Angela Dawson, May 8, 2002)
Rupert Everett and Colin Firth didn't quite hit it off when they met some 18 years ago. The actors were thrown together in the class warfare drama "Another Country" and really didn't have that much in common. Firth admits he was rather serious and stodgy—terribly earnest. Everett was arrogant, intellectual, outspoken and witty. Still is, notes Firth. Firth recalls, "His description of me was somewhere along the lines of ‘a ghastly red-brick-guitar-playing communist ready to give his first $500 to charity.'"

That summation probably wasn't far from the truth, admits the actor best known as Mr. Darcy to the legions of fans of the BBC series "Pride and Prejudice."

"He was very dull in the old days," Everett mockingly laments, correcting Firth's figure to "the first $1 million" to charity. "I wonder what happened to that!"

These days the two Brits, both in their early 40s, get along famously. It is probably a good thing too, since they play lifelong friends in the latest film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's century-old British satire "The Importance of Being Earnest."

"Earnest" excitement"  (THR, April 26, 2002, by Martin Grove)   (excerpted)
As for Colin Firth, who plays Jack, Parker noted, "Colin I know from way back. He's a dear fellow and, also, I think what I like about him is that role Jack is often a bit of a stooge to Algy. Algy tends to have the funny lines and having played Jack I sort of understood that it's not necessarily appealing. But in my adaptation I was quite concerned (about) that. In some ways, his is the story with the most change to it. I was quite interested to try and get a little big more compassion into the story than is normally the point. I would say originally its intention is more satirical and wickedly sharp. With time, the objects of satire are perhaps less evident and particularly on screen I felt it important to try and create this world where you give them a context you believe in a bit more. The great thing about film is that you can actually draw out the world they're living in much more and immediately you're getting a rapport between them and their environment.

"And Colin, I find, is a terrifically detailed and sensitive performer. He can bring the sensitivity and complexity (to the role). What I was really thrilled with was I feel there's a lot of range to him in this part. I think there are moments that I was surprised that they're sweetly affecting. I wasn't quite sure how they'd turn out. (And that's) partly because of the rapport between the two guys. They worked together many years ago on 'Another Country' on screen and that rapport is there. On set it's there. I'm pretty confident that that's what sort of (resulted in) what they do on screen. Rupert is a terrifically sharp-witted fellow and you've got to keep your own about you. And Colin and he had some terrifically good fun almost fraternal tangles. It was so clearly aimed at what they were doing and they became even firm friends, I think, by the end, which was lovely."  

Sense and Sensibility (Vogue, May 2002, by Vicky Woods
He opens next in Oliver Parker’s film of The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde’s frothiest play. As Jack Worthing, a buttoned-up country landowner who adopts the name Ernest on his louche visits to London, Firth is straight man to Rupert Everett’s Algy Moncrieff (who gets all the best jokes).  Parker filmed another Wilde play, An Ideal Husband, which wasn’t terrific, but his version of Importance is brilliantly done and had me transported (not to mention reaching for Kleenex in an empty screening room).  Outwardly, it has all the seductive Miramax trademarks: British leading men, non-British actresses (Reese Witherspoon, Frances O’Connor), lush sets, sweet music, et cetera. But as Firth points out, “Wilde is at his most profound when he seems at his most trivial,” and Parker’s film pulls out all the sexual tensions and darkness that underlie the play—Wilde’s last work before he was drummed out of England for his homosexuality. "Earnest was Victorian slang for gay,” says Firth, who is famous for doing his homework for each role.  People would say, “I hear he’s frightfully earnest.’”

Will screen at the Tribeca Film Festival
Miramax will screen the film on Friday, May 10, and Saturday, May 11. Tickets go on sale  April 24 to the general public, although advance sales to American Express cardholders are now being taken. Details at the festival website

Bringing you the syncopated vocal stylings of Jack and Algie...
With guitar and the convenience of a port-o-piano, the suitors "Serenade" their intendeds after having been found out. The song is set to an 1881 poem (for music) by Oscar Wilde entitled "Serenade." Lyrics and more photos from the scene can be found here

Trailer online
The movie trailer can be viewed at Moviefone in both the QuickTime and Real Player formats.  Screen captures are now available at the  Gallery Three

"Rupert Everett's Cheeky Ad-Lib" (Aug 6, 2001) 
That Special Touch: Gay actor Rupert Everett ad-libbed two weird moves that stunned co-star Colin Firth while filming The Importance of Being Earnest. In a scene where they're supposed to shake hands, Rupert swept Colin into his arms and KISSED HIM on the cheek! And in a shot that called for Rupert to slap Colin on the back—he slapped him on the ass instead! Both times, Colin's stunned reaction cracked everyone up! After viewing the scenes, the director elected to keep them—and Colin agreed!

Matt Wolf, AP (Aug 1, 2001) "Director Revisits Oscar Wilde"
"Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture!" snaps Dame Judi Dench, digging into the role of Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's classic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest.

And rise Colin Firth does, even if his character, the gently smitten Jack Worthing, would rather be alone with Lady Bracknell's daughter, Gwendolen (played by Frances O'Connor).

After all, when you're dealing with one of the most formidable women ever written—and a no less formidable actress—you don't dillydally.

"'Semi-recumbent,"' says Dench later, savoring the word during a break in filming. "Heaven!"

She stars in a new film version of Wilde's 1895 play, which is due for a possible Christmas release in one or two cities and a far-wider release in the spring. The movie also stars Firth, O'Connor, Rupert Everett and, as the fresh-faced young ward Cecily Cardew, Reese Witherspoon.

The director is Oliver Parker, who two years ago came out with a film of another Wilde play, An Ideal Husband. That one cost $10.5 million and grossed $40 million, which makes the slightly pricier Earnest a good commercial bet.

The problem, of course, is that Earnest is a far better-known play and was already successfully filmed once, in 1952, with Michael Redgrave and Edith Evans under Anthony Asquith's direction. Evans established the gold standard for Lady Bracknell's horrified question, "A handbag?"

Parker, who once played Jack in a staging of the play a dozen years ago, sighs. "You're bound to make decisions that a lot of people won't agree with, and I actually liked the old film of Earnest. It's charming in its way," he says. But he adds, "the thing that frustrates me about productions when I see them is that they tend to become the opposite of what I think is the play; they've become establishment property." The spirit of Earnest, he says, demands something different. "There's something wonderfully light but anarchic in it."

That's certainly true of the scene being filmed on this particular day. Lady Bracknell—the play's gorgon-like comic motor ("To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness.")—is checking out Jack's suitability for her daughter. She also, perhaps, is eyeing him and his friend Algernon Moncrieff (Everett) in some vague way for herself.

"She's cheeky," smiles the 41-year-old Firth. "There's sex involved here; these lines are a lot more alive than I had thought."

"I mean, she's frightfully flirtatious," says Dench, 66, who played Lady Bracknell at London's National Theater in 1982. "There are so many allusions to how fond Lady Bracknell is of Algy particularly, and then there's poor old ailing Lord B. stuck up in a room with a tray."

As she talks, Dench's blue eyes glisten. Her face looks tiny under an elaborately bedecked hat. "She's done frightfully well for herself, hasn't she," Dench asks of her character, "for someone who started out with no fortune?"

"It's a bit of a scary monster, that part," says Parker. "You really need to break it down and give it some humanity and vulnerability, as well as power."

The actors talk about the importance of approaching the famous play without preconceptions— of not being too earnest.

Says Firth, the movie "offers you the opportunity to escape the cliches of the play."

Watch a BBC news clip showing the filming (requires Real Player)

Evening Standard (June 14, 2001): "Passport to Ealing gets renewal stamp"
It is almost half a century since a major film was released under the distinguished Ealing Studios banner—The Ladykillers, in 1955. Now it is hoped the magic that helped create classics like Whisky Galore and Passport To Pimlico can be revived for a new version of The Importance Of Being Earnest....The latest film version of Oscar Wilde's comedy...produced by Barnaby Thompson and starring Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Dame Judi Dench, is being shot at the studios now and should be released next year—the studios' centenary year.  [Full article]

Baz Bamigboye, Daily Mail (June 8, 2001): "Wilde days as Earnest stars get their Oscar nominations"
The costume fittings were "in Rome. Nothing but the best—pure silks, linens and the finest brocade—was considered…and that was just for the men.

Producer Barnaby Thompson calculated that his two leading actors, Colin Firth and Rupert Everett came away with 17 outfits each, including Rupert’s armour.  “That’s possibly right”, admitted Rupert. Colin insisted “I never demanded them, I was provided with them”.

All this before we even get to what the ladies are wearing in the sumptuous film version of Oscar Wilde’s play about mistaken identity, The Importance of Being Earnest. Rupert plays Algernon, the penniless London playboy (essentially a ligger), while Colin is John Worthing, who lives one life in town and another in the country.

There’s Frances O’Connor, as Gwendolen Fairfax, in a most becoming silk number with a cream jacket fitted so tight she must have been sewn into it. And Reese Witherspoon as dear, darling Cecily Cardew, in a pretty blue and ivory dress. And Anna Massey, prim and proper in plain cotton and silks as Miss Prism.

Judi Dench, though, commands our attention in a hat of immense distinction and a faux fox wrap (she would have strongly disapproved of having a real fur around her neck). She’s also sporting thick-soled buffalo boots, because Lady Bracknell must have height. (She swore she would hit me if this was revealed. Ouch).

Judi has been on the set since Tuesday, having arrived late because she was shooting another movie, Iris, in this country, and also attiring in The Shipping News in Newfoundland. Today Judi sails out of a 16th century church in poshest Buckinghamshire and into view in….a graveyard. “Prism! Where is that baby?” she demands.

It’s just one of the great many lines from Wilde’s play. Director Oliver Parker, who shot an opulent film version of Wilde’s An Ideal Husband two years ago, looks at the public morality and private vices of late Victorian high society.

But I don’t think there’s any point in doing a period film if it doesn’t have a bearing on the present”, Parker said. “There’s no reason to just having people walking and talking and looking beautiful. There’s stuff going on beneath the surface and no one is what they seem. Gwendolen hides her dark desires under a cloak of respectability. Her mother, Lady Bracknell clearly used to be a bit of “gel” in her day, so I didn’t want her to be a dragon”. Even so, as Judi explains, Algernon and Jack are frightened of her. “But Lady Bracknell has a soft spot for Algy—she’d probably pat his knee, given half a chance”.

The young ladies aren’t the innocents they first seem either. Gwendolen, for instance, sports a tattoo, bearing the name Ernest. “She loves Ernest—people do anything for love”, said Frances O’Connor. “You can dress it up how you want, but people are just people underneath it all. They want basic things—love and romance—and Wilde had a knack of providing that”, the Australian-born actress said.

Reese Witherspoon, a superb actress, was in the film Election two years ago. Her Cecily is extraordinary bright, but consumed by an inner romantic fantasy life. “She fantasises about an errant knight coming to carry her off”, she said.

The ensemble, which includes Tom Wilkinson as Dr Chasuble, seem devoted to each other. Ms Massey hands out expensive biscuits and explains the meaning of difficult words. Mr Firth tells naughty jokes while Judi tries not to get the giggles. She knows this piece very well. She played Cecily at the Old Vic in 1959 and Lady Bracknell at the National.

Henry Fitzherbert, Sunday Express (June 3, 2001):  Clash of crumpets in a Wilde reunion
After his fisticuffs with Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones's Diary, Colin Firth did battle this week with another floppy haired Brit famed for his wit and charm—Rupert Everett. This time, however, the clash was a lot more sedate—the pair tussled over a crumpet for a scene in The Importance Of Being Earnest. No blood was shed, only a bit of hot butter.

The Oscar Wilde adaptation is shooting at West Wycombe House in Buckinghamshire with Everett playing Algy opposite Firth's Jack Worthing. It marks the first time the pair have acted together since making their movie debut in Another Country, the 1984 film which shot Everett to fame for his performance as a homosexual public schoolboy in the Thirties. "They are like The Odd Couple, completely different guys but very comfortable with each other, and that comes across in the film, " producer Barnaby Thompson tells me during a break in the action. Soon to join the cast as Lady Bracknell is Judi Dench, whom Thompson rightly calls "the hardest working woman in showbusiness".

Note: West Wycombe House was also a location in Another Country's lake and island scenes.

Netribution, May 11, 2001
The Film Council's Premiere Fund has announced that it is joining Fragile Films' the Importance of Being Earnest, the fourth film to gain money from the fund. A co-production between Miramax, Ealing Studios, Grosvenor Park, Newmarket Capital and now the Film Council, the films tars Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Tom Wilkinson, Edward Fox and Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell (the handbag woman). Director Oliver Parker and producer Barnaby Thompson are looking to replicate the critical and commercial success of An Ideal Husband, also by Wilde and staring Rupert Everett. In an exclusive interview with Netribution, Premiere Fund head Robert Jones said 'I have to say that although I've only seen the rushes of Importance of Being Earnest, Oliver Parker has managed to give it a very modern feel for a period drama. Maybe that's just the luck of Wilde's writing - they're very accessible, very witty and, well, they're just good fun.'

News of the World, May 6, 2001
Colin is going Wilde: Here's the first exclusive still from the new film version of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, starring Rupert Everett and Bridget Jones heartthrob Colin Firth. Colin plays Jack Worthing, who invents a character called Ernest and gets away with wicked doings by blaming them on him. 

Entertainment News Daily, May 4, 2001
"We're killing ourselves to wrap it before the actors' strike," Firth says. "But it's truly a labor of love. Each day is a joy, because the material is so good."

PeopleNews, April 30, 2001
Fresh from his success in Bridget Jones's Diary, Colin Firth is to attempt to resurrect the Ealing comedy. The suave actor will appear alongside other British stars Dame Judi Dench, Rupert Everett and American Reese Witherspoon in a production of the Oscar Wilde classic The Importance of Being Earnest to be filmed at the famous Ealing Studio. The £10 million production will hit the screens next year.

Although a byword for British comedy in the 1940s and 1950s, when it produced such classics as Passport to Pimlico, Ealing Studio in west London has not released a comedy since 1957. A source said: ‘They’re hoping to give a boost to the studio and the British film industry in general. The play is still hilarious and we’ll have to see what such a fantastic cast does with it.’

Michael Cieply, Inside.com, April 29, 2001
Miramax, meanwhile, is still deliberating dates for its The Importance of Being Earnest—based on an Oscar Wilde play, with Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, and Judi Dench in the leads—which had been rumored for June 2nd. 

Marilyn Beck and Stacy Jenel Smith, April 28, 2001
The Importance of Being Colin:  Though Bridget Jones' Diary star Colin Firth is excited about bringing Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest to the big-screen with Rupert Everett, Dame Judi Dench and Reese Witherspoon, he notes that doing such a classic piece is a double- edged sword. "It's difficult because we know the script is good," quips the British actor. "So if it doesn't  work it's not the writer's fault. If someone says, 'You weren't funny, Colin,' I can't say, 'It's the lines...this guy just doesn't know how to set up a gag."

He says it'll be reunion time when he starts shooting Earnest in London this week. He starred with Dench in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love and recalls, "I did my first film, Another Country, back in 1983 with Rupert."

Variety, March 7, 2001
Australian thesp Frances O'Connor (Mansfield Park, Bedazzled) is set to join Judi Dench, Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Reese Witherspoon in Oliver Parker's adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest. O'Connor has been cast as Gwendolyn Fairfax, the object of Jack Worthing's (Firth), aka "Earnest's," affection. The Miramax/Fragile Films picture will go before cameras April 23 in London.

The Hollywood Reporter,  Feb. 27, 2001
For the first time in her career, Reese Witherspoon is taking on a British accent and slipping into a costume drama. The actress is in negotiations to star  in Fragile Films' feature adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" for writer-director Oliver Parker (An Ideal Husband). The $15 million-budgeted production is scheduled to begin shooting April 23 in London for nine weeks. Miramax is distributing the film in English-speaking territories.

Earnest, which also stars Rupert Everett, Colin Firth and Judi Dench, is a comedy about mistaken identity set in English high society during the 1890s. Confusion begins when Jack Worthing (Firth) goes to the city, calls himself Ernest and falls in love with Gwendolyn Fairfax. Meanwhile, Gwendolyn's cousin Algernon (Everett) also calls himself Ernest, goes to the country and falls for Worthing's ward, Cecily Cardew (Witherspoon). Dench plays the disapproving Lady Bracknell.

Barnaby Thompson and Uri Fruchtmann of Fragile Films are producing the film.

The Independent, November 15, 2000
The immortal exclamation: "A handbag!" heard in theatres across the land for the past hundred years is soon to be heard in Hollywood.

Rupert Everett and Dame Judi Dench are lining up to star in a new film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's classic comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, with Miramax Films expected to take worldwide rights. The film, produced by the independent production company Fragile Films, under the revived "Ealing Studios" banner, will be directed by Oliver Parker, who also wrote the screenplay. Everett and Parker previously collaborated on An Ideal Husband, another Wilde drama released by Miramax.

"The Importance of Being Earnest," perhaps Wilde's best-known play, is a frothy comedy of mistaken identity set in English high society in the 1890s.

According to Variety, the film and theatre trade magazine, Everett is to play Algernon, one of the two male leads, while Dame Judi is in talks to play the redoubtable Lady Bracknell, one of the great cameo roles in English drama. In the previous cinematic version, filmed in 1952 by Rank, the role of Lady Bracknell was made immortal by Dame Edith Evans. The film also starred Sir Michael Redgrave and Joan Greenwood.

It is likely to be the first film made by Ealing Studios since Fragile took over the west London studios earlier this year. Fragile has pledged to revive the Ealing comedy brand, which was established in the Forties and Fifties by the producer Michael Balcon.

The film, with a $15m budget, will begin shooting in the spring. Fragile Films declined to reveal further details yesterday.

The play has a poignant history in Wilde's life. It was first performed on Valentine's Day on 1895. While the play was in rehearsal, Wilde was in the middle of his troubled relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, and was being pursued by Douglas's father, the Marquis of Queensbury. Queensbury planned to disrupt the opening night but he was stopped by a policeman. Two weeks later, Queensbury left a calling card in Wilde's mailbox at the Albemarle Club: "To Oscar Wilde, posing as a Sodomite (sic)." Wilde decided to take legal action and sued Queensbury for libel. He lost the case, was arrested for sodomy, tried, convicted and sentenced to two years' hard labour.

 The OSCHOLARS
An Electronic Journal for the Exchange of Information on Current Research, Publications and Productions concerning Oscar Wilde and his Circle

 Monty Python's Oscar Wilde Sketch

 Cast interviews at www.hollywood.com

"Lady Come Down"

 Interviews with Colin and other cast at NYC premiere