18 April 2001
 
 

Colin Firth has never read Bridget Jones's Diary. Well, he has, sort of. 

"I've read every word of those books," Firth declared to me over a 
very funny and agreeable lunch Tuesday at Gabriel's restaurant in New 
York. Firth is most forthcoming, and not the stuffed shirt he usually 
plays on screen. In other words, it is acting after all. 

But more about not really reading the books upon which the hit movie 
in which he co-stars are based. 

"I have read them," he insisted. "Just not in the conventional order. 
I confess that I did not start at page 1 and end at page 300. But I 
can honestly enough to say that I've looked through that book enough. 
And the order in which I read it ended up as a beautifully 
impressionistic literary work!" 

Yes, there was much laughter when this was revealed. "So I've read 
both books. And there's even more of me in the second book." 

In other words, he skimmed Helen Fielding's two novels that are the 
basis for the hit Sharon Maguire film which also features Renée 
Zellweger and Hugh Grant. 

This despite the fact that Firth himself is a character in the 
novels. Readers of the bestsellers know that Bridget is obsessed with 
the actor because he played Mr. Darcy in the adaptation of Pride and 
Prejudice which we saw on A&E here in the States. 

"Helen Fielding herself tends to call me 'Mr. Darcy' very often. And 
I'm starting to feel that I am fictional, that I'm loosely based on a 
real guy named Colin Firth. But my name is Darcy and I am fictional." 

If it makes you feel better, Firth — the son of a history professor — 
didn't read Jane Austen until he was in that film. 

These revelations and many others were discovered during a wide-
ranging interview. For one: the very British Firth actually attended 
a year of junior high school in a St. Louis, Missouri suburb. For 
another: his beloved mother was born in Iowa and did not see England 
until she was 18. Ditto for his dad, who was born in India. 

So you see, it's all done with smoke and mirrors.

Firth appears in films like Bridget Jones, The English Patient, and 
Apartment Zero wearing his trademark suit and tie. So I was a little 
taken aback when he appeared in Gabriel's wearing a t-shirt, jeans, 
and leather jacket. 

I wasn't sure this was the real Colin Firth, the guy who considers 
America a foreign country, was rejected by Steven Spielberg for 
Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and has a 10 year old son with actress 
Meg Tilly, with whom he starred in Valmont. (Tilly is now married to 
Columbia Pictures honcho John Calley.) 

But it is. Two weeks ago, Firth had a second son, by wife Livia 
Giuggioli, born in Italy. Because of that, he missed the American 
premieres of the Bridget Jones. 

But he was impressed that Universal Pictures, which distributes 
Bridget overseas, flew him in from Rome to London for the U.K. 
premiere. "It was a spectacular moment for me. I've never seen a film 
company get so behind a movie." In the U.S., equally enthusiastic 
Miramax is distributing Bridget.

And it's not like Firth didn't want to talk about the film, which is 
a phenomenon in the U.K. and should hit No. 1 in wider release this 
weekend in this country. 

But first he's got a dirty joke for me: "A man comes home and finds a 
movie star in bed with his wife. He says, outraged. 'What are you 
doing?' The movie star replies: 'I've got a film coming out this 
week, and I've just signed to do another.'" 

So you can see Firth has a slightly jaundiced view of Hollywood, 
although he says he wouldn't mind being in a big-budget action film. 

"I'd like to do studio films," he said, "as long as I don't have to 
live in L.A." 

He's paid his dues, even if they were maybe a little less than 
others'. As a struggling acting student he got a job, circa 1981, 
dressing up as Indiana Jones and walking the streets of London. 

"I had the hat, the jacket, and the rope," he recalled. "And for some 
reason, people thought I was Harrison Ford. I was signing autographs 
all the time. Of course it could have been worse. First they wanted 
me to dress up as Harry Hamlin in Clash of the Titans!" 

As for his co-stars, Firth says the whole issue of Renée Zellweger 
gaining and losing weight to play Bridget is rubbish. "She's a really 
lovely girl. I think she looked great in the movie. She could afford 
a few more pounds, frankly!"

And Hugh Grant? "I knew him a little before we made the movie. He's a 
rather debonair gentleman, with a little devilishness, which means 
he's never boring." 

When I mentioned that Grant seems upset that audiences are pegging 
his caddish character in Bridget as the real Hugh Grant, Firth 
stepped in: "I don't know if he's upset about that. I'm not 
commenting on his sexual habits. I know nothing about them. But I 
think the demeanor we see in the film is more like him. In fact, he's 
been going around saying he's sick of playing the nice guy."

Firth's next role is in The Importance of Being Earnest — which will 
be his sixth or seventh Miramax film. And then? A return to the stage 
with Hamlet, in a production directed by his acting-school mentor, 
which will debut in London next winter. 
 

© Copyright Fox News 2001  Thanks Chris