Pride and Prejudice wasn't my cup of tea by Andrew Billen  It made him a sex symbol, but Colin Firth would rather not play up to his Darcy image: he wants to be a devoted dad and a steady boyfriend.     Nostromo Saturdays BBC2  It is hell being a sex symbol, as we all know. One minute you're an ordinary bachelor with an adored son, making an unspectacular living, and the next you wear tight breeches, dyed hair, gallop about on a horse, and you're the object of every panting maiden's fantasy. What a brutal transformation. When it happened to Colin Firth after Pride and Prejudice he tried to ignore it. "That sort of adulation s probably dangerous, and you can make a fool of yourself.  The sanest place to be is laughing at it. I felt a charlatan and fake because I couldn't identify with Darcy. I don't look much  like him, or

He plays Charles Gould, a young Englishman who arrives in mythical, turbulent South American country of Costaguana with his beautiful bride (Serena Scott Thomas) to reopen a silver mill discovered by his deceased father, Ernest. In the book Ernest dies through the exhaustion of coping with corruption. In the TV version he is assassinated during a revolution. "We simplify, in order to make a drama," he explains. "He implored Charles never to come to Costaguana, but he had to prove he was strong where his father was weak. That is a common motivation for sons, but I didn't understand Charles at first. He doesn't have the normal, identifiable vulgar motives which drive an industrialist - glory, wealth and power. 

"I tried to discover what it is in me that identifies with him. I've been obsessed enough with work to throw myself headlong into it at the expense of anything else, but I came to the conclusion he had a rather warped romantic dream, quite contrary to his wife's belief that he was rigorously practical and unsentimental. I had doubts about the part, but took it because I wanted to find out more about him. It was a huge curiosity. I knew going to Colombia for so long would be a life-changing  experience, and it certainly was. I made new friends and relationships which will stay for life." One of them was with an Italian student, Livia Giuggioli, who was working for the producer, but we must approach that subject with stealth. 

Charles Gould is one of three new parts that illustrate his versatility. He is also a fanatical Arsenal football fan in the film of Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch, and an upper-class English hooray in The English Patient, based on Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize winning novel, which opens next month. "It's common for me to believe I'm an impostor when I act. Who the hell am I to take on these people's lives which have nothing to do with me? I feel I don't have the credentials, and that makes me jittery. But I've, discovered ways of appropriating a character and very often I end up thinking I've just played myself." This doesn't mean he has no real personality of his own, like many actors, but he does admit, "It can be a recipe for instability. Your own identity becomes dislodged so the job tends to attract those with a rather oddly placed ego. Someone who can change personality although I resist the word ,change' because I think you're always playing yourself in a sense - may have a weak sense of himself, or be prone to suggestion. It's asking for problems when you put these over-sensitive creatures - I don't think I'm over-sensitive, but to fight not to be - into a position where financial stakes are high and they're in the hands of other people's judgment. My way out is to have a healthy sense of the absurd, which kicks in at crucial moments. 

"There's a paradox to most things in life. Acting is often dressing up in frocks and chasing your ego, but that doesn't mean you don't take it seriously. A lot of actors love to believe they are doing something noble, that telling stories is essential and beneficial - and at the same time wondering if they're just trying to feed their egos, make money and gain applause. Its possible the two can coexist, but I cling to the belief that acting has its uses. I'm not at ease discussing them because of the dreaded 'luvvie' label, although I have to say it doesn't bother me terribly. It's just a nickname, and I daresay it's been earned." 

His level-headed attitude is probably genetic, with grandparents who were missionaries in India, and parents who are both academics. 'It never occurred to me to act until my teens, when I was part of an amateur group. My parents were a little alarmed because it was uncharted territory. They assumed it was a pipe dream and an excuse to turn my back on academic responsibilities. They were absolutely right, but I was given a fairly rude shock when 1 went to drama school and it was suddenly for real. There were no more pipe dreams." Luckily, he didn't need them, as there was almost immediate acclaim on the West End stage as a homosexual schoolboy based on the spy Guy Burgess, in Another  Country. "I wasn't expecting success and it took me very much by surprise. 1 was always the voice of doom, assuming I'd be bloody lucky to carry spears in the village rep. So, because 1 didn't think anything was on the cards I had no ambition,  no mental image of appearing on screen - ever. I beavered away trying to make it happen, but kept my dignity by  doing experimental theatre. It wasn't made difficult for me, and I didn't have to starve, but it's hard for an actor to think in terms of a career. There's no ladder, and you don't know where you'll be in three years." He specialises a bit in neurotic,  sensitive young men. "If the haracter doesn't have problems, I'll give him a few. I tend to see how extreme I can make them.  Certainly I did that with Darcy." 

Although he has an eye on the main chance, he turned down a lead part in a remake of The Shining in favour of the low-budget Fever Pitch. "The money was good, and I could have used it, but I didn't need it enough to do something I was afraid I'd despise. I don't take a position on this. The next job might be the most mercenary, vulgar  thing you've ever seen in your life. If I want to buy a house [at present he lives in a £150,000-or-so flat in Hackney, east London], or am about to go bankrupt, and someone comes along with a hefty pay cheque for a ridiculous job, I'd do it. I've made a couple of pieces of crap, although when one is working one takes it seriously. Its embarrassing appearing in rubbish, so you con yourself it's worth while, even though the third eye knows full well it isn't. But I do have a child to support." 

His six-year-old son, William, lives in Santa Monica with his mother Meg Tilly, an actress who starred with him in Valmont, Milos Formans 1989 $35 million flop based on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, after which they lived  together for several years in a remote part of British Colombia. "I didn't make a conscious decision to leave England, but I was exhausted, wanted a break and didn't know how long it would take. I felt I was cutting off, but that was fine for me. There's a side which perpetually wants to withdraw from the arena for a while. Work may peter out, but you can't always be a slave to that. One lets the chips fall where they may." He travels to California to see William as often as he can. "It enters my mind to  try for a career there, but the place bores me to death. I've just finished a film A Thousand Acres, which came up because I happened to be there visiting Will. It's devastating being away from him. He changes so rapidly. Ideally one would be with one's child every single day of one's life I'm doing the best I can in this situation." 

He dislikes discussing his private life, adds pointedly, "I choose to talk to people who won't ask  about it. I've had reporters outside my house [when tales of his love life have surfaced] and I found it a surprisingly 
 uncomfortable situation. But I can quite easily refuse to answer and lot of actors want it both ways -' look at me, look at me'; and then  'leave me, leave me.'

One can make oneself invisible if one chooses, and I'm lucky because my face is ordinary and  neutral, so not often recognised. I understand why people are interested, but they can stay curious. It's of their damned business. I hear constantly the justification from journalists that its what the public wants. A drug dealer uses the same argument." 

Quite so, I say, asking about Livia. "She's studying English in Rome. By the way, she is 27, she is not 22 or 19, as has been written. The implication that I go around with a bimbo on my arm is not correct. That sort of  publicity presents even more of a challenge in a job where it's already difficult enough to have a steady relationship." One reason for that, I suggest, is the cosy opportunity for location romance "It's perceived that actors go off with each other, and that is not an entirely justified perception. You're in some mini-universe the outside world disappears, to be replaced by this intense world. You don't have to worry about problems like the gas bill. You just forget things" 

True. He and Jennifer Ehle, his co-star, were supposed to have had a romance filming Pride and Prejudice. "Yeah, but you know what : it didn't seem like that. Maybe every case is different, it wasn't just a location romance. It continued for a year. I don't want to imply my idea of a relationship is one that lasts for just a year - but these things only happen to me when I'm single and it's appropriate. I have never found myself leaving one relationship for another. Acting is not very nice when it affects your personal or when you're being slagged off. I'm rather run-of-the-mill, in that I'm yet another of those who constantly flirts with the idea of giving it all up. The trouble is we become a little precious. We-re spoiled because we're permitted to operate outside normal conventions. We hug and kiss to say hello. We use foul language without anyone telling us off, behave extremely badly if we want, play when everyone else is at work. That makes us feel special and self-dramatising, but we can also think it is not a very dignified, grown up or important enough job for an intelligent person. You have to be a bit mad. We cherish the notion that one day we'll write or direct and we're not simply a luv. I am no exception."