November 10, 2003

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 giggles]  It’s obviously extremely, uh, sweet and very, very emotional. And I don’t like that kind of movie so there was a point, you know, in about the
first 20 minutes, where I, erm, 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 [voice over scene where Jaime describes to Aurelia what kind of books he writes] 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 while speaking, and Colin replying “I’d, um 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's...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. [slipping into the half the book blowing into the pond scene with the next part of the interview voicing over the scene] 

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's attention is called comment on the scene 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 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 [heavy 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. Erm, 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. And we'll be back after these messages. [fade out]