The Firth dimension 
by Harriet Lane 

Colin Firth has spent years laying the foundations of his career and it has finally paid off. But Harriet Lane finds the leading man ill at ease with fame. 

Colin Firth is worried about his eyebrows. They don't look, well bushy enough. "Could you possibly build them up a bit?," he asks the make-up artist, in tones that iron out any possibility of a refusal. Later he stipulates exactly where he wants shimmer and rouge. "I'm a real queen about this " he says in a tone that passes for apologetic embarrassment. Mr. Firth takes the studio floor looking rather like Danny La Rue, and switches on a 240-watt smoulder that sends the dazzled stylist crashing into the clothes rail. The photographer who was hoping for something slightly more low-key asks him to relax. 'Just stand there" he implores. But Colin Firth, the poor lamb simply can't help posing. 

When we meet in a small chintzy drawing room at the St James Club, this tendency is very much in evidence as he arranges himself in a small armchair that cunningly makes him look approximately seven foot tall. True, he is looking off-handedly fantastic today (free from Mr Darcy's stocks and sideburns, he is less chinny and more boyishly Byronic) in blokeish, olive green moleskin trousers, navy polo shirt, and suede jacket. But he speaks so deliberately , so carefully, that for a good 45 minutes I am suspicious of everything he says and does. In a romantic novel, for instance - this stuffy reserve would mask shyness, insecurity, and sensitivity. But Colin Firth , 35, is not Mr Darcy, and so reluctantly one has to wonder whether he takes himself too seriously. 

Talking about filming of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo, the BBC's big budget autumn series which was filmed entirely on location in Colombia, he says things like "Yeah, there were hairy moments, you were working with horses and explosives and crowds of extras with guns. There were oneor two quite nasty accidents." You start thinking along the lines of crushed charioteers in Ben Hur, but then he spoils it all by adding "someone nearly lost a finger at one point." There is also a dreadful moment when he starts telling me about a stunt that went wrong. "There is one episode when 1 am being garrotted - do you know what garrotted means?" It's an annoying question to be asked, particularly by a heart-throb who is resting his feet of clay (shod in battered boots the size of small mini-cabs) loutishly on the coffee table. 

To be fair though, the filming of Nostromo does sound like a chapter out of Black Mischief, with an international cast (Claudia Cardinale, Albert Finney, Serena Scott-Thomas and Lothaire Bluteau) marooned in Cartagena de Indias for five months in sweltering temperatures and full Victorian regalia (Boots and wigs and tweed suits ; you were soaked within a minute of dressing'). With a flash of endearing candour Colin confesses he found Conrad's novel extremely boring. In the end.1 only finished it through sheer pig-headedness.' 

It may have taken Jane Austen to point Colin towards fully fledged stardom, but Firth afficionados have been ardently following his career since 1983. The son of two teachers, he was raised in Hampshire and at 22, left the Drama Centre to star in the stage production of Another Country in the West End, later playing the delectable Judd to Rupert Everett's Bennett in the film version. Firth tossed away his cricket sweater at exactly the right moment and rode out the Merchant-Ivory backlash, by busying himself with oddball worthy projects , such as Tumbledown, The Hour of the Pig, and the stunning A Month in the Country. On the personal front he had a six year relationship and a son, Will, with Canadian actress Meg Tilly, whom he met on the set of Miles Forman's Valmont. He now lives (alone) in Hackney. 

No-one can quite fathom why Firth's Darcy triggered quite such a tidal wave of lust, but the combination of haughtiness, knee-high riding-boots, a nice pile and a real-life affair with his Elizabeth , Jennifer Effle, worked serious magic: the Darcy Bennet nuptials occupied the sort of column inches which used to be dedicated to royal weddings. After she and Firth split, Firth was photographed win the company of attractive Italian, Livia Guigioli, whom the tabloids referred to as his fiancee. I offer my congratulations and there is a chilly moment while Colin wrestles with his manners. "That's another thing,'he says eventually fidgetting, "I've never said "yes" or "no" about that;; it was an assumption made by one of the papers, which was suddenly taken up as fact. It is a bit annoying when you've got your granny ringing up to ask if it's true". 

Colin torches a Marlboro Light and his froideur ebbs away as he pokes fun at the yellow press and himself - rather engagingly, in that low, rasping voice. " I've had people saying, "Oh come on , you love it, but what's fun about somebody taking pictures through your window? It gives me the jitters. There was a picture of me buying a vacuum cleaner, not something I am particularly ashamed of, but it does make you think twice about going out to buy bog-roll and bin-bags if you think you might end up on page two of the Sunday Mirror. So you think, I won't pick my nose in front of the living room window, or wear that horrible sweatshirt to Marks and Spencer." He laughs, devastatingly. Odd. My legs appear to be turning to jelly. 

Hollywood has expressed some interest "but it was stuff I mostly did not want to do. I was approached with the script for Beverley Hills Ninja, which I didn't feel was a natural follow-up. Maybe it was set in 19th century Derbyshire. I don't know." Instead, he has worked on The English Patient (with Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas) and the film version of Nick Homby's Fever Pitch. Colin's last attendance at a football game, prior to filming , was in 1976. ("Southampton vs Hull. It was a very dull match). The prospect of Mr Darcy poncing around on the terraces isn't one that inspires benevolence among hard-core soccer nuts, but Colin doesn't give a stuff. "There is a wonderful Miles Davis quote on jazz.'Don't play what you know, play what you don't know.'Any Arsenal fans who begrudge me should go away and play Jane Austen. " He curls his lip. He may be posing but, jeez, he does it beautifully.