Jon Stewart: My guest tonight—much to some audience members’ delight—an actor whose films include Shakespeare in Love and Bridget Jones Diary.  His latest is Love Actually.

[clip of scene where pages blow into lake and Aurelia takes off her clothes, while Jamie looks on]

What? Please welcome, Colin Firth.

[Colin enters, they greet each other and he sits down]

I'm watching a movie about a high brow author who's clearly working on his next historical novel and a brilliant piece and suddenly I'm watching soft-core porn. What the hell happened out there?

Colin Firth: No, it all cleans up after that. Yeah, yes. You can, you're safe to go to see the film.

Jon: I'm a young man who's easily impressionable.

Colin: Indeed.

Jon: Nice to see you again. How are you?

Colin: It's good to be back.

Jon: A little hectic? You're promoting this thing like crazy.

Colin: That's right. Yeah, it's not been a smooth ride so far. Really, I've...

Jon: When's the premiere?

Colin: The premiere's tonight. It’s in about a half hour’s time, and I have a slight sense of foreboding because I, well, because what seemed like a very long walk from the hotel to the limo ended in disaster just now.

Jon: You killed a man?

Colin: No, it was much worse than that. We... One thing the English cannot cope with is...is embarrassment and, um, you know, will...Well, to cut a long story short, I encountered a small, but very devoted, element of my fan base outside the hotel, signed a few autographs, walked with my head held high towards the limousine, and fell flat on my ass and um...

Jon: Oh man.

Colin: You have very hard tiles—whatever you call them—cobbles, here in the city...

Jon:  Sidewalk.

Colin: Cobbles?

Jon: Cobbles, yes. [nods in agreement]

Colin: Yes, this is a language thing. But was my walk [indicating his entrance], was this one okay? Did I do it...?

Jon: I thought you did great.

Colin: Thank you.

Jon: And that's why we carpeted a lot of this anyway, just in case you did take a spill. Now, you seem, you seem graceful. Are you prone to spillage?

Colin: Uh, I'm a, yeah, I'm a disaster.

Jon: Really?

Colin: Yeah.

Jon: And that is more for an English person more than an American that is a difficult...We have shows...

Colin: No, it's a difficult thing to deal with, for us, as a race.

Jon: Really?

Colin: Yeah, it is. We'll sit, I mean, I remember one of the things, I was sitting on the Tube, that's our underground train, and um...

Jon: We actually have tubes that we sit on.

Colin: You...[Colin laughs and does some questioning reaction looks] You do?

Jon: No.

Colin: I'm not sitting on one now, am I?

Jon: Well, I will say this, certain bars do.

Colin: Really? OK, you’ll have to tell me where they are.

Jon: You're on the subway...

Colin: You're on the subway and...England...I grew up with the terrorist threat from Ireland where you have these signs up saying “If you see an unattended package, do not attempt to approach it or open it. You must pull the communication cord, stop the train and tell everybody to leave the train.”  Now, that, for an English person, is just hell. So you sit there thinking, “please don't let anybody stand up and embarrass us. Please let it go off before anybody...”

Jon: So, trains would explode because people were shy?

Colin: And everyone was very relieved.

Jon: Oh really?

Colin: Yeah.

Jon: As it went off [wipes brow], “thank goodness.” In New York, I don't know if a sign like that would work. I think people would, even though knowing it was explosives, steal the package. I do think they would take it.

Colin: You want to buy a bomb?  It’s still got three minutes.

Jon: It seems like an old timey version of England. I thought England was much more brash, much more posh. The other guy, the soccer guy. It's much more glam now.

Colin: Actually, to tell you the truth, it is. You got me. It's just me, I think.

Jon: Oh really? You’re the last English gentleman?

Colin: Um, well, I'm just, the sort of, the last English twit really. Can't make it to the limo. Yeah.

Jon: Are you looking forward...This movie has a cast—and I've never seen this before—one thousand three hundred people.

Colin: Yeah, it certainly does.

Jon: It's a lot of people in there.

Colin: There are a lot of people.

Jon: Who do you not like?

Colin: Hugh Grant.

Jon: I don't blame you there.

Colin: But I got to, I got to kick his ass.

Jon: Did you?

Colin: About a week ago, yeah.

Jon: You fight with him in every movie you’re in. You fought with him in the Bridget Jones Diary, not that I went to see the Bridget Jones movie. Believe me, Dude, I was, I thought I was, seeing Die Hard.

Colin: Boys don't go to my movies.

Jon: Yeah.  What...

Colin: They don't really, do they?

Jon: Do you ever think about doing like a real shoot 'em up?

Colin: I think about doing it. It's just no one else thinks about me doing it.

Jon: But the ladies...Are you finding your fan base expanding just pretty much the ladies or do the guys give you the begrudging...

Colin: Well, it diminished by about seven people outside the hotel half an hour ago obviously. No, the guys do give me the slightly kind of, “huh.” Actually, what they do is they laugh and shake their heads when they see me. It's a look I see all the time. I'm just walking down the street like everybody else and, and the guy'll just do a double take and he'll go...[Colin imitates reaction]

Jon: You know, what you should do, honestly, is just pull your fly up. That'll take care of the whole thing.

Colin: Is that gonna do it?

Jon: Uh, is this movie any good? What are we dealing with here?

Colin: It's pretty good, yeah. Yeah, if you're a girl.

Jon: Oh, it's ah...

Colin: No, no, no...

Jon: It's a nice date movie?

Colin: It is.  It's, it's, um...There is probably, occasionally, if you're very...

Jon: You haven't seen it have you?

Colin: No, I haven't. [Colin gives up and 'acts' embarrassed]

Jon: You're trying to come up with something?

Colin: No, you might, might want to vomit once or twice, but, no, it’s cleared up. That is taken care of...

Jon: I am waiting to see that as one of the blurbs on top of the movie: “I wanted to vomit once or twice.” [gesturing as if reading it on a billboard] Well, Love Actually, it’s in the theaters everywhere tomorrow. You, my friend, stop it, don't. You're a handsome and graceful gentleman.

Colin: Thank you.

Jon: And I appreciate having you on the program.

Colin: Thanks so much.