Room 101

INTERVIEW

Apartment Zero's COLIN FIRTH is fast making a name for himself playing characters on the brink of madness. Giuliana Mercorio catches up with him at the airport and decides he definitely needs a holiday.

I first met Colin Firth in Mainline Pictures' premises in London's Museum Street, after a screening of his latest film, Apartment Zero, a chilling psycho-thriller set in Argentina. I had found it a highly disturbing experience and felt considerably shaken, so it was with some trepidation that I entered the room, my tape-recorder at the ready.

But Firth couldn't have been more different from the character he plays in the film, that of Adrian LeDuc - a tortured loner, teetering on the verge of madness. It's yet another difficult character to add to his list, for this smiling, eminently-sane, attractive 28-year-old seems to have a great talent for portraying highly-intense, often sexually-repressed, always psychologically-complex individuals.

Firth himself was obviously still shaken by the Argentinian experience, even though he has made two more films since Apartment Zero. In fact, he was - as he himself admitted - obsessed by Argentina.

He talked at length about the country, about tangos and the unresolved, unrequited feelings of the dance, and how he sees the tango as a metaphor for Argentina's political situation. But at the end of an extremely pleasant hour, I realized to my horror that I hadn't pressed down the recording button of my treacherous tape-recorder.

Second try. Heathrow, two days later and we're having breakfast in a noisy restaurant, before Colin takes a plane to LA for a holiday. He's exhausted but relaxed. I ask him why he always seems to play angst-ridden people. "People ask me if I have some deep-rooted psychological problem that attracts me to screwed-up characters! But it's quite simply that they're easy to play. You see, playing deeply-disturbed neurotics is such a laugh!"

His role in Apartment Zero has won him and the film a batch of international awards already, including Best Actor at both the Washington DC and Seattle film festivals. And he is electrifying. Shot in a claustrophobic apartment block in an eerie, murkily-lit Buenos Aires - rendered even more ominous by a brooding deep-toned music score - the film centres around the close friendship which develops between two very unlikely people. They're Adrian LeDuc, a reclusive, cinema club owner, and Jack Carnes, his charming lodger (Hart 'Die Hard' Bochner). In the meantime a series of brutal murders by an unknown killer spreads terror in the city.

However much Colin Firth may *say* that playing difficult characters is "a laugh", each time he gets deeply involved. And he admits it: "I've lost myself in a character pretty much most times. You get rather possessed by a character while you're playing it. It just takes over sometimes in your daily life. Strangely enough, sometimes it has a contrary effect and I think that Hart Bochner (who plays a sexy, superficially-relaxed American hunk) and I took opposite characters. I was much more relaxed and easy-going, and very cheerful during the shooting of Apartment Zero. Hart was much more nervy, introspective and uptight."

But it was Argentina which disturbed and fascinated both actors. "Making the film was one of the most interesting experiences. It's left me obsessed with Argentina. When Hart and I meet, we talk about it constantly. We were both very nervous and frightened a lot of the time."

What terrified them is that they found themselves enmeshed in a subtle tissue of lies and denials about its recent sinister past. "You see, there wa s something in the air and it's rather confusing, because Argentina at present is not a place where people are disappearing. There aren't any death squads in action now, but there *were* five years ago. A huge proportion of the population ignored it, and another section denied it. Some were desperately trying to draw attention to the murders and torture of innocent citizens, but nobody wanted to listen. It must have been like a surrealist nightmare. I met a lot of nice people, but even some of them didn't believe these things had happened."

Firth prays for a clear head in "Apartment Zero"

Firth feels very intensely about a lot of things, and when he gets passionate - which is often - he rattles on at a furious pace, barely stopping for breath.

"You can't live in Argentina and pretend you're living in Surrey! I was treated by some people as if I'd been a dangerous influence, but human rights are human rights, so I was outspoken and I really did upset a lot of people. Fuck it, I wasn't going to keep my mouth shut! Martin Donovan (the film's director) knew what was going on. This is actually what the film is about, the fact that the monster hasn't gone away. The military are not there, but the spirit is still there - and it's a monster."

Firth brought this same intensity to Tumbledown, the BBC drama about real-life Falklands hero, Robert Lawrence, shown last year on BBC1. Firth's portrayal of Lt Lawrence was intelligent, brutally-honest, and utterly devoid of sentimentality. The film caused furious controversy, and filled The Times letters page with angry correspondence. It also launched Firth's successful career.

It was about Robert Lawrence, a typical young officer in the Scots Guards who liked a drink with the lads and a tumble with the girls. He also loved being a soldier. But all that changed when 40% of his brain was blown off by an Argentinean bullet. He came back a physical [and] mental wreck. Nor did the treatment he received from army and doctors help him to overcome his bitterness.

Firth still feels strongly about that role: "It's rather difficult to be objective about it as a drama. I got to know Robert Lawrence very closely and it was a very strange relationship because he's not someone I think I would have become friends with under normal circumstances. Seeing it, all I could think of, was 'is that all, is that all that's made it onto the screen?' After what I learnt, what I went through, what we all went through - it's just a film, that's all it is."

Talking about the film reminds Firth about another subject he's got definite views about: scriptwriters. "Tumbledown was the most exciting film script to work on that I've ever had, and Charles Wood is possibly the most underrated screenwriter in the world! It's funny, you know, in the theatre you can talk about a Mamet play, you can talk about going to a Pinter play, but you'd never talk about a Wood script. And I think that the writer 's position in terms of recognition in the business, is just appalling. We're nowhere without them. I've thought of Charles ever since I did Tumbledown. Nothing else has been interesting in the same way."

If it's not Argentina and the unjust treatment of scriptwriters, it's the inadequacy of the school system in dealing with teenagers which gets the Firth treatment: "My education was deeply stifling. Nothing that I had experienced in the classroom has had anything to do with life. At that age your entire being is invaded by your sexual consciousness, and all you're getting is algebra and French! I'm delightfully happy as an adult, but I was not very happy as a child. I'm very suspicious of people who romanticize their childhood."

But for a boy who didn't like school, he hasn't exactly done badly: "I'm earning a lot. I'm now earning what film actors earn, rather than the minute amounts I was earning a few years back. But I'm terrible with money. Most probably, it'll disappear and I won't even know where it went."

Success hasn't changed the fact that Firth is a sensitive and thoughtful person - qualities which are hallmarks of his intelligent portrayals. These formidable assets are coupled with a capacity for hard work. "I did well from the first moment I left drama school. I was doing well there (the London Drama Centre), which came as a big surprise to me. My first job was a lead role in the West End as Guy Bennett in Julian Mitchell's play, Another Country."

Firth went on to make his film debut in the same vehicle, this time as Judd. Since then he's appeared in many stage and film productions. Each role is given a great deal of preparation. "I'm like a glutton...anything I can lay my hands on from the moment I know I'm doing a job."

For A Month in the Country he developed a wonderfully convincing stutter as the shell-shocked WWI veteran who falls in love with the vicar's wife, played by Natasha Richardson. "These things come almost organically. I don't know how. As soon as I get a sense of my character, then, hand movements, speech... these things just happen. I remember A Month in the Country had a very 'trusting' script, everything depended on the director and the actors. I have a great respect for that."

Firth has made two more films since Apartment Zero, Valmont and Wings of Fame. In Valmont he plays the title role of the wicked Vicomte whose favourite pastime is seducing young and virtuous women. Was he influenced by other interpretations of Dangerous Liaisons?

The outgoing Jack Carney (Hart Bochner) tends to introspective Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth) in "Apartment Zero"

"I did go and see it on stage long before I knew I'd be playing Valmont, and later when I knew I had the role. But I didn't feel it had anything to do with what I was doing... the characters weren't motivated in the same way. As for the film, I avoided seeing it until I'd finished."

He adds that his interpretation was completely different from John Malkovich's. "I play him as a very manipulative bastard who looks like a nice guy." What upset Frith was the cast's reaction - they thought he was manipulative. And, of course, he was, because Firth himself will be the first to admit that he becomes so immersed in the character, he takes on its characteristics. This time, however, it was the seducer who in real life became seduced. For his co-star in Milos (Amadeus) Forman's Valmont, was Meg Tilly.

Firth see's falling in love as an admission of being "more ordinary than I thought I was". Does he mean "more human", and is he happy about it? "Yes, very. I was going too far down the road, doing too many weird things like Apartment Zero." He quickly adds: "I had fun doing it, but it does test you."

Firth's just finished working with Peter O'Toole. "I enjoyed working with O'Toole enormously. He's one of the most intelligent actors I've ever met and what he said was riveting. He has a lot of life experience and outside interests, and that's a relief. He plays a famous movie star, and I a struggling actor. I kill him and I die..."

Oh dear. Colin Firth definitely needs a long holiday.

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