Onelife (published for the One company which operates from London Liverpool St to Stanstead, Cambridge & East Anglia  --  Issue 2. Autumn/Winter 2004  Thanks Peggy and Jennie Dashing, debonair...dark? British heart-throb Colin Firth talks to Eileen Concon about his fascination with the gloomy side of life, the importance of the family - and punch-ups with Hugh Grant Think of Colin Firth and you think, dashing and debonair, you don’t think dark and depressing. Yet the actor claims that’s the image closer to home than the brooding romantic hero we normally associate with him.

"I’m actually fascinated by dark dreams and by the gloomy side of life," says the softly-spoken star. "When it comes to music or literature, I’m definitely drawn to the dark stuff I don’t have a permanent romantic view of life either." he continues. "I’m only sporadically romantic. I’m not necessarily an optimist in terms of romantic love."
 

And yet, sitting half-slouched in his chair, looking sexily dishevelled, it’s not difficult to see why this reluctant heart-throb is still first choice when it comes to romantic leading men. Whether he likes it or not, Firth is the epitome of the tall, dark and dashingly handsome cliché. Add to that his natural charm and tendency for self-deprecating wit, and it’s no wonder women will be flocking in their droves to see him reprise his role as Mark Darcy in the eagerly-awaited Bridget Jones sequel, The Edge Of Reason. Firth, Hugh Grant and Renée Zellweger are all back on board for the next instalment of the adventures of hapless singleton Ms Jones. But while Firth isn’t saying whether she’ll finally get her man, he does reveal that fans are in for a treat — even though he had big reservations about signing up for a sequel. "I don’t actually even remember doing it," he laughs of his decision to recreate the role. "It just seemed to happen, but I do think myself and Hugh would’ve been the bad guys if we hadn’t signed up. But, though a sequel is fraught with danger and most of us were sceptical about doing another Bridget Jones, any fears we did have were allayed the minute Renée opened her

mouth," he laughs. "I thought, ‘She’s great. This is going to be fun.’ And it is. It’s an hilarious script."

One of the comedy highlights from the last movie was the big punch-up between Colin and Hugh’s characters, and happily for fans, the pair will be slugging it out again for Bridget’s affections.

"Hugh has always been a miserable fighter," jokes Firth of their latest big screen scrap. "I find he’s physically deteriorated in the last three years. I have to be very gentle with him now. I kept finding myself saying ‘sorry’ and calling him a nurse and giving him a pill and a blanket," he adds with a smile.
 

Fighting over a woman isn’t something Firth has to worry about in real life. He’s blissfully happy with his beautiful wife, Italian documentary-maker Livia Giuggioli. The pair met on the set of the 1995 movie Nostromo and married two years later. They have two sons — Matteo, born last year, and three-year old Luca. Firth also has another 13-year-old son. Will, who lives in America with his mother, actress Meg Tilly. Despite his hectic schedule, Firth maintains that family-life is his priority first and foremost. "My life revolves around my wife and children," he says. "Having children was the biggest and most important change that I’ve ever gone through. I think it totally gave me a different sense of myself. My children have given me a better relationship with myself and tested me in ways I didn’t expect. "I probably once thought fatherhood was all about slippers, pipe, and slow death by comfort. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I find it the most rejuvenating thing imaginable." Firth’s own upbringing was happy and secure. The son of academics, he spent his early years living in Nigeria before his family settled in England when he was five. He was 18 when he joined the National Youth Theatre, and was an instant success in his stage debut Another Country. He went on to become one of Britain’s most in-demand actors, not to mention one of its biggest sex symbols. But that’s a tag which still doesn’t rest easy on his broad shoulders.

"It’s the strangest thing to be considered some sort of sex symbol," he says, looking horribly embarrassed. "The truth is that, until I met my wife, at 35, I had only had two girlfriends. It’s utterly bizarre to hear people discussing me in sexual terms. It’s not something I’m used to." 

He knows who to blame though — a dripping wet Mr Darcy, seen by millions emerging from a lake in  tight breeches and a loose white shirt. That scene not only helped the BBC’s adaptation  of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice become one of the most successful TV dramas of all time, it changed Firth’s life forever.

"It took me completely by surprise," he says of the memorable role. "I couldn’t make any sense of it because I had never focused on playing romantic characters, so I felt like it was happening to someoneelse, and I didn’t quite know how to answer it. I was really surprised that it was a success at all, and that people are still talking about it."

Not surprisingly, after Darcy, Firth was oftered just about every romantic hero role going, but the star says he secretly hankered to get his teeth into darker stuff.

That’s why he leapt at the chance to do his previous film, a Hitchcockian thriller called Trauma. In the movie, Firth plays a man who wakes frightened and disorientated from a coma to discover his wife has been killed in a car crash. To make matters worse, the outside world is obsessed with the public death of a famous pop star, who may have been murdered.

Although it seems a dramatic departure for Firth, he maintains that this was the role he’d been searching for.

"I’ve never read anything like it," he enthuses. "Making Trauma felt like a homecoming. I’ve really enjoyed stuff that’s happened over the last few years, but it was hard to find anyone who’d put me in this sort of material again, and I really had a hankering for it. When I was on the set, I thought I could really spend my life doing this sort of stuff. And when I saw it, too, I felt I just wanted to do films like this."

The film also deals with the nature of obsessive celebrity, something Firth is all too familiar with.
 

"Oh yeah," he says with a wry smile. "I know all about that. The only thing that makes it easier to deal with is the increasing sense that it’s not you, it’s like you’ve sent some hologram out to represent you. I remember speaking to a famous actress years ago, who said she was feeling like changing her name privately because the name she was famous for was so unlike the person she was at home that it had become like a split personality." But, however much he feels uncomfortable in the spotlight, it doesn’t look like dimming for the talented star, who is busier than ever. And despite protestations of harbouring a dark side, even he has to admit that, right now, it’s difficult not to look on the bright side. "I’ve got a nice home, great kids, and a wife I love. I’m a jobbing actor, and I have a great life," he says, flashing a very contented smile.