10 September 2002

The importance of being an actor 

Actor Colin Firth is one of Britain's most versatile leading men, but the dashing star has resigned himself to the fact he'll always be remembered for wearing the most famous wet shirt in TV history.

That unforgettable scene in the BBC's production of Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice seven years ago when he emerged from a lake in loose white shirt and tight breeches, has gone down in television folklore as one of the sexiest ever.

More than 13 million of us - mostly women of all ages it has to be said - sat glued to the BBC on those autumnal Sunday evenings, and the way Colin glowered and brooded, and looked intense and hurt. . . well, it was all too much. By the time he blurted out to Miss Bennet, "My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you," millions had welled up into one collective wobbly bottom lip.

His portrayal of the brooding Mr Darcy won him a legion of swooning female fans and helped catapult him on to People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People list.

Not surprisingly then, the star isn't in any hurry to shake off his wet-shirt tag.

"I know a lot of actors hate being reminded of something to which they've been closely linked, but I have absolutely no problem being known for the part of Darcy," says the Hampshire-born star. Happily for his many adoring fans, the actor, who turns 42 today, is back in period costume for his latest film, The Importance Of Being Earnest.

Looking as suave and debonair as ever, Colin plays Jack Worthing, a reserved bachelor living in the country who creates a non-existent wayward brother called Earnest who he uses as an excuse to escape to the bright lights of London. The movie, which opened last Friday, features an all-star line up including Judi Dench, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon, and is a big screen adaptation of the classic Oscar Wilde play. It was the chance to utter the great playwright's words which drew Colin to the role.

"You can't get better writing," he says. "If you're talking about comedy, Wilde is the pinnacle of English wit. The original play is brilliant. When you scratch the surface it's very cheeky and wicked. But society back then was actually very corrupt and decadent. The Victorians were just as known really for all their perversions, as they were for their austerity."

As well as getting Colin back in elegant period costume the film also reunited him with his first ever big screen co-star Rupert Everett. The pair both made their movie debuts in the 1984 film Another Country but Colin admits they weren't exactly the best of friends.

"I had just come out of drama school and I must have been very dull. He did not have much patience with dull people," he recalls with a wry smile.

Eighteen years on, however, the two stars seem to have resolved their differences, admitting they had great fun working together this time round, especially when it came to singing a duet.

"We have to serenade Cecily (Witherspoon) and Gwendolen (Frances O'Connor) during the sequence where they reject us," explains Colin. "I did study the guitar part, hoping that some kind of ability on the guitar might make up for my vocal shortcomings. But I'm afraid it all added up as one big shortcoming," he laughs.

Colin is a huge music fan, so much so his ambition was to be a pop star, not an actor and he cites the late Marc Bolan, who died 25 years ago on September 16, as one of his biggest influences.

"I was about 10 when I saw him performing Hot Love on Top Of The Pops," he recalls. "I loved that androgynous look, glitter and corkscrew hair. I wanted to be rock and roll and not to grow up and wear a suit."

He's certainly not done that. Since making his debut in Another Country, Colin has donned a variety of attires, including a safari suit for the Oscar winning The English Patient and a rather fetching doublet for Shakespeare In Love. He hasn't done too badly with his contemporary costumes either. He won acclaim for the slovenly-dressed football obsessed teacher in the film version of Nick Hornby's novel, Fever Pitch. And who can forget that hand-knitted reindeer sweater he wore as Mark Darcy in the smash hit comedy Bridget Jones's Diary?, a role inspired by the pounding his first Pride And Prejudice Darcy set off in the heart of Bridget Jones's author Helen Fielding.

To have the Mr Darcy play Mark Darcy is one of the film's best jokes. The movie helped raise his profile further in Hollywood and he has been inundated with offers since. Yet while all this success has come as a surprise to the son of two university lecturers and grandson of three missionaries, he says that was the aspect of acting he enjoyed the most: never quite knowing what was going to happen next.

Ever since he was recruited from drama school into the then little known play Another Country which went on to the West End stage and was then made into a film, he's relished the peaks and troughs of an actor's life.

"There's just no straight trajectory in this profession," he says, "but I find that very unpredictability has made the life so much more manageable. You don't see each new thing as being the thing that might make a big difference. You know that even if something goes well, the effect will probably ebb away soon after - although hopefully leaving some residue behind. Of course, I want the work to keep coming in and be interesting, but I'm not queasy about success any more. I know you can take it all too seriously. If you get famous early, you end up having a skewed vision of yourself. This way, with all the ups and downs, you get into almost a rhythm of surprises, some pleasant when things go better than you expected and some mildly disappointing when things you thought would go well don't. But you never take it all too seriously."

Having a balance in his life helps too. He makes regular visits to Hollywood to see his 12-year-old son William by American actress Meg Tilly. The couple met when they both appeared in the 1989 movie Valmont, but separated after five years. Colin then had a much publicised romance with his Pride and Prejudice co-star, Jennifer Ehle. Then two years ago Colin became a father for the second time when his Italian wife, documentary film-maker Livia Giuggioli whom he met on the set of the TV adaptation of Nostromo and married five years ago, gave birth to their son Luca.

Now Colin says his two boys are his main priority. "They're the best thing and the main thing. My life revolves around them, everything else matters less."

Even so, career wise Colin is more in demand than ever. He has three big up and coming films, including Hope Springs alongside Minnie Driver and Heather Graham, and American Girl  [What a Girl Wants] with John Travolta's wife Kelly Preston.

"She's a real ball of fire," he grins. "And very down to earth considering what her life must be like." He's also set to reprise his role as Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones sequel Edge of Reason.

• The Importance Of Being Earnest is on general cinema release.