Colin Firth is no stranger to romantic comedies, after wooing Renée Zellweger in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and being the jilted suitor in "Shakespeare in Love". Now he's involved in a bizarre love triangle with Minnie Driver and Heather Graham in "Hope Springs".

You fell love with Charles Webb's novel ("New Cardiff") before there was talk of a film. How did you come across it?
It just came recommended. I was having dinner with a friend who had a preview of the book and said: "This has got your name on it," and then a couple of days later I got the same message from another friend. I went to find it and by another coincidence, the guy who had the rights to it was the producer I was employed by at the time. So I was in very good position to lobby for it.

Do you accept there is a 'Colin Firth' role or character?
Yes, I think it is far more easily identified by other people than by me. I usually find when I get asked questions it's about assumptions about the types that I have been playing. It used to be that I was [playing someone] who was always paranoid, or a loser, and there is usually [a type] that you associate yourself with at one time or another.

Do you think all parts are essentially autobiographical?
I think so. I think like most creative pursuits you are drawing on aspects of yourself. [With acting] there is an emphasis in people's minds on changeability and versatility. I don't see it like that. Although I have made attempts at transformation, to a greater or a lesser success, I do find it quite a fun exercise. [But] I find it far more interesting taking a thing that I might bring to a situation and applying it to particular problems presented by a story - how can I make it truthful? In fact, I think it's harder in some ways to play a character closer to yourself. The nuances and the details that you are asked to deal with - that's where the challenges are. In this case, it appealed to me partly because it felt close to me in some ways - it's about a confused middle-class man adrift in smalltown America, and that has definitely been me!

Do you ever feel tempted to escape and hide away somewhere like Hope Springs? 
I sort of try to do that at the same time as keeping [the career] alive. Funnily enough I lived in the place where we shot the film for five years [Firth lived in British Columbia in the early '90s, during his relationship with Meg Tilly], and it was five years in a log cabin, really. I came home, did work, and went back. So I wasn't totally escaping from it, but I do have a tendency to go and find a retreat somewhere.

You're playing an artist in this movie. Do you have any real artistic talent? 
None whatsoever. I have the level of talent where I could never aspire to the sort of pictures you see in this film. I have just played Vermeer [in "Girl with a Pearl Earring"] and so you can imagine how far away I was from that. It was basically hours of lessons to look like someone who wouldn't drop his paintbrush.

The romance in "Hope Springs" involves matchmaking. Has it ever played a part in your life?
Not as applied to me, but I did make the mistake of matchmaking once - a heartbroken friend of mine and a girl I thought would be right for him, and I arranged some errand they could go on together. It worked, they fell in love and it was the most disastrous relationship. So that taught me a lesson.

"Hope Springs" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 9th May 2003.

The writer/director of "Brassed Off" and "Little Voice" has crossed the Atlantic to make "Hope Springs", a romantic comedy starring Colin Firth, Minnie Driver, and Heather Graham. Mark Herman tells you about the difficulties of adapting for the screen and the even bigger challenge of giving up smoking.

"Hope Springs" is adapted from a novel by Charles Webb ("New Cardiff") which is mostly dialogue-based. Did that help?
I thought it would be an easy job. The style of writing that Charles uses in this particular novel feels very much like a screenplay, but as it turned out the restructuring of it was very complicated and still going on as we were going into the shoot. What I thought was an easy job was a difficult one.
Having done original work with "Brassed Off" and adaptations like "Little Voice", which do you find easier?
It's a different thing every time. I've just been writing an original one again, and had forgotten how hard it was to think of something original. But these last three adaptations have all been so different, working on "Little Voice" from the stage had its own set of problems; "Purely Belter" was from a long book - to boil that down was quite difficult - and ["Hope Springs"] had its own problems in that it felt like a screenplay and very easy, but some of the best scenes were 20 to 30 pages long, such as the undressing scene. I'd love to have had two or three weeks to shoot that, but we didn't have that.

The undressing scene was very discreetly filmed. Was that in an attempt to get a particular rating, or did the actress involved [Heather Graham] ask you to be discreet?
The latter. The last two or three films that she had done had had no problems with that part of the contract, but on this one it was a problem. It became a nightmare to shoot, especially the way she was moving around... at the end of the day if she had taken everything off, we'd still have had to cut it out. It was very difficult to shoot and a nightmare to edit.

There's a running gag about not smoking in the film. Was that in the novel or something that you added?
It existed in the novel but I elaborated a bit. I was trying to stop smoking when I was writing it. As a running gag it probably didn't appear in the book as much as it does in the film. 

Did you succeed in giving up?
No!

How did that gag go down in America?
It's interesting, the laughs it gets in different places. The smoking thing, they just don't understand - why would it even be a joke?

"Hope Springs" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 9th May 2003. 

Named after the picturesque New England town in which it's set ("18,459 people live in Hope" reads a sign), "Hope Springs" tells of an English illustrator called Colin (Colin Firth) who - heartbroken at being dumped by his fiancée Vera (Minnie Driver) - heads to America to start again.

Colin's matchmaking landlady Joanie (Mary Steenburgen) introduces him to "trained care-giver" Mandy (Heather Graham), who soon breaks through his English reserve with a combination of vivacity, nudity, and alcohol. But when Vera arrives requesting a reconciliation, he is forced to make a difficult decision.

It's a dilemma most warm-blooded men would kill to face - horny Heather or Minnie the Minx? - and the love triangle throws up some amusing situations that compensate for the numerous lapses in logic and pacing.

Firth's character may be something of a pill to begin with, but once he lightens up, he emerges as a deft and affable leading man. 

It's also good to see supporting roles filled by such reliable talents as Steenburgen and Oliver Platt, a hoot as Hope's venal mayor.

All in all, a date movie that's well worth making a date with.

"Hope Springs" opens in UK cinemas on Friday 9th May 2003.

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