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Has it really been a decade since VF's first
Hollywood Issue,
the one that anointed Gwyneth Paltrow and
Julianne Moore as
rising stars by putting them on inside cover
panels? (Notice the prime real estate those two get now.) The world
is definitely in
fast forward: Oscar time seems to arrive
sooner every year -
no, wait, the Oscars are earlier this year,
and so, ergo, is the
annual Hollywood Portfolio. Adjust
the calendar accordingly,
stretch out on the couch, and get ready for
a 41 page show
of the best, brightest, and biggest in the
movie heavens. |
The Wanted Man
COLIN FIRTH, actor, mum's heartthrob, fair-trade
activist.
Thirty films, including seven in the last
two years.
In his high, stiff collar and tight breeches,
Colin Firth was so smolderingly glandular as Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation
of P & P that one could only assume he was another English pretty boy,
destined for lesser Merchant Ivory films and B-picture period romances
made with Italian financing. But from The English Patient onward,
he has demonstrated a willingness to play cuckolds, schlimazels, and conflicted
guys - especially recently, in movies as disparate as Love Actually, WAGW
(as Amanda Bynes's dad!), and the Bridget Jones pictures - that has broadened
the public perception of him and somehow served to make him still more
appealing to his female admirers. (And he did get to smolder, for old times
sake, as Vermeer in GWAPE.) He modestly ascribes his success to his
'neutrality,' but 'versatility' might be a better word.
Photographed by Julian Broad in London on
November 14 ,2003. |
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