Katie Couric: British actor, Colin Firth, is perhaps best known as the dashing barrister Mark Darcy who won the heart of Bridget Jones in Bridget Jones’ Diary. Now Colin Firth is out with a new movie, again about finding love. He plays a broken-hearted writer who retreats to a villa in France, only to find himself taken with a young Portuguese housekeeper in Love Actually. [Clip of movie]

Katie:  Colin Firth. Good morning, Colin.

Colin Firth: Good morning.

Katie:  Nice to see you again.

Colin:  Nice to be back.

Katie:  So you’ve seen this movie.  What’s the verdict?

Colin: Well, I think it’s remarkable, actually. It sails very, very, very close to just, uh, something which you, may make you feel slightly queasy if you’re not with it, you know. [He smiles and Katie laughs]  It’s obviously extremely, uh, sweet and very, very emotional. And I don’t like that kind of movie [slight smile] so there was a point, you know, in about the first 20 minutes, where I, uh, wasn’t sure I wanted to...detach myself from it, but I was completely swept up with it.

Katie:  You were? When you first heard about the role, did you say, “Uh, I’m not sure” or were you completely gung-ho early on?

Colin:  It was taking a big risk. There’s no question about it. It...this, this sort of thing, if it fails, fails miserably. It’s quite a high wire act trying to do this kind of comedy and I think that the other, the upside of it is very hard to bet against. Somebody like Richard Curtis, who’s had a 100% strike rate as far as I can see with every movie he’s ever written.  And so I wanted to take the ride with him, and uh, I tend to trust him, so...

Katie:  You play Jaime, the broken-hearted writer who, at the beginning of the film, finds his girlfriend basically, uh, can I say shagging on American television? [Katie giggling, and Colin answering “I’d, uh yes”] with his brother...

Colin:  That’s right!

Katie:  Shocked and appalled and broken hearted, he retreats to, I’m assuming the south of France.

Colin:  Yes, the south of France, yes.

Katie:  Where he, he tries to write, because he is a writer. He meets up, as I mentioned, with this, uh Portuguese housekeeper, who, uh, who’s, I thought very lovely in the film.

Colin:  She’s a delightful actress. She, uh, she’s known as a singer in Portugal.

Katie:  Right!

Colin:  In fact, she’s a very famous singer there.

Katie:  I should mention, her name is Lucia Moniz?  Is that right?

Colin:  That’s right, yeah.

Katie:  And she’s quite well known in Portugal, which is sort of interesting because she’s new to, certainly American, and even British audiences, I am assuming.

Colin:  Ah, absolutely, yeah.

Katie:  And he decides that...He becomes quite enamored with her.

Colin:  He does.  It’s love across a language barrier and it’s the comedy of misunderstandings and it also has a poignancy to it. And uh, I, uh, that’s something I know quite well cause I’m married to an Italian who I’m quite sure would not have married me if she’d understood everything I said.

Katie:  Did you have to learn to speak Italian to court her properly?

Colin:  I did, I did! She, her English was so good that it wasn’t actually necessary for practical reasons but I thought the gesture was probably warranted. [Colin realizes clip is playing] And, uh, this we see here,  I think, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s characterized as the big romantic gesture that his character makes. This story happened to Richard Curtis, the, the director.

Katie: Oh, it did?

Colin:  Up to a point, yes. He fell in love with a Portuguese cleaning lady, but he didn’t learn her language, and go and propose to her, so...

Katie:  So that, so it was never...

Colin:  No.  No, no, I think he just, uh, I think he had an unhappy ending...

Katie: Oh...

Colin:  ...to that story, yeah.

Katie:  And you, your character in this takes a language immersion class and, or course or whatever, and you learn to speak Portuguese, which I guess you had to do for the role. You end up not doing it particularly well or getting a little, some of the terms confused, which I thought was a really cute thing in the movie, where they have your translation and you’re getting things all mucked up and I don’t want to give too much away but you had to learn some Portuguese for the role, right?

Colin:  I did. I had to learn inaccurate Portuguese, which was probably far more accessible to me than accurate Portuguese. Uh, it’s a very, very beautiful language to, uh, enter into and actually...

Katie:  But difficult, yes?

Colin:  It’s...the pronunciation is, uh, almost impossible as far as I’m concerned. It sounds a little bit like Russian. There’s a lot of things you have to do, with muscles you didn’t know you had.

Katie:  Meanwhile, you’re working on Bridget Jones’s Diary, the second one, right?

Colin:  That’s right.

Katie:  How’s that going?

Colin:  Well, it seems to be going very well. At first, when [big sigh] the idea came up to do the sequel, I felt, you know, is it wise? And then, I think most of us felt a little bit like we’re called up for military service really. Uhm, but now, that, uh, now that it’s under way, I think it’s, it’s all showing up to be very worthwhile. I, I’ve got to give Hugh Grant a good kicking again, and...

Katie:  Yeah, I understand you end up in a pond together.

Colin:  We do end up in a pond. I end up in ponds in most of my work, basically.

Katie[giggling]: That’s right!

Colin:  Yeah.

Katie:  You should have a ‘No Pond’ clause maybe in your next contract.

Colin:  I’m working on it, yeah.

Katie:  And, meanwhile, before we go, I just wanted to congratulate you and your wife. You have a new baby boy!

Colin:  We do.

Katie:  Matteo (MAT-e-o)?  Is that right?

Colin:  Matteo (Mah-TAY-o), yeah.

Katie: [embarrassed laugh]  Matteo. Sorry.  I think I need to work on my...Is that an Italian name?

Colin:  It is. It’s Matthew, yeah.

Katie:  Oh, well. Congratulations. Great to see you, Colin.

Colin:  Thank you.

Katie:  Of course your latest movie is Love Actually.

Colin: [softly] Yeah.

Katie:  Nice to have you.