There are some calls that a woman of a certain age simply cannot refuse. And right up there, with “could you test this exceedingly expensive moisturiser?” and “perhaps you should see this Maldives hotel” comes: “We need to talk about Colin.”
Yes, Colin Firth. Progenitor of a million female fantasies in a wet white shirt and breeches, political activist, faithful spouse and, now, Oscar winner. What is left to say?
Well, plenty. Because as the airwaves frothed with Firth-filled adulation following his Best Actor award, across the country women were nodding across their cornflakes and muttering: “Yeah? Tell us something we don’t know.”
American Academy: we were there 20 years before you, marvelling at his acting tour-de-force in Tumbledown; sniggering at his lack of underwear in Hope Springs; forgiving him his Lord Henry Dashwood in What A Girl Wants (nobody’s perfect).
Firth is the movie star Hugh Grant could have been if he a) gave the impression of loving acting, and b) actually did some.
And he is almost impossible to dislike. Even as his Golden Globe win was announced last month, he was a hair’s breadth from national treasure status. Pitching his speech just this side of self-deprecating luvvie, he joked that winning had saved him from the worst of his mid-life crisis and ownership of a Harley Davidson.
Likewise, as he picked up his Oscar yesterday he confessed to a “stirrings in the abdominal region” (cue gulping and a vaguely glazed expression from female audience members) – which turned out to be a compulsion to dance. But here, of course, Firth was again playing to his audience – look at me! The repressed Englishman threatening to do something spontaneous!
For there was a time when it looked as if Firth might box himself in as Hollywood’s go-to stiff upper lip. His turn as Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones’s Diary was self-referential and funny. By the time of the sequel, The Edge Of Reason, it seemed a little hackneyed. He took a succession of roles – The English Patient, Love Actually, Hope Springs, Mamma Mia! – in which he veered close to becoming our stereotypical repressed Englishman.
But in recent years, unlike Grant, Firth has been brave enough to take on parts that hint at something more complex. His role as George Falconer, mourning his gay lover in Tom Ford’s A Single Man won him his first Oscar nomination (he lost to Jeff Bridges). He packed so much silent pain into a few seconds of George VI that I was surprised to find myself weeping at the cruel lot of a member of our royal family.
But the acting is only part of Firth’s appeal. He is what Lawrence Dallaglio recently described as “that most dangerous of things – the Englishman who isn’t afraid of showing his feelings”.
And just as some sentences are harder to write than others, so we report that 15 years in, he has found true contentment with his wife Livia and their two children, Luca and Matteo. Speaking on a chat show last week he said he could never be unfaithful, and unlike most Hollywood stars, you believe him. Before he met Livia, he claimed, journalists would find it hard to dig up more than two girlfriends.
Even former partner Meg Tilly, with whom he has an adult son, wrote publicly after his success in the Golden Globes: “Our happy hats off to a member of the family. We are so pleased for you! … Jubilant hugs and kisses from all of us.”
All this aside, it would be easy to parody the Firths. They traded their home in Hackney for one in Islington’s Barnsbury. A long-time Liberal Democrat (he recently withdrew his support as a result of the “profoundly disillusioning” U-turn on tuition fees), his wife professes to wear only ethical dresses to awards shows. He guest-edited Radio 4’s The Today Programme, looking at the efficacy of international aid.
What offsets this almost overwhelming worthiness is Firth’s own intelligence, humour and tendency towards self-deprecation. He describes his attempt at editing Today as “a sobering experience”, and, yesterday, joking that his career had peaked, said he would like to try comedy next, “to continue my long tradition of making a fool of myself.”
But interviewed in the wake of his success by (an uncharacteristically giggly) Sarah Montague, Firth admitted that for many his enduring appeal will always stem from his brooding Darcy and wet breeches.
And, perhaps befitting a man on the cusp of middle age, he says that, contrary to public opinion, he is “not remotely bothered”. In fact, he says with some grace, that he feels lucky. “Mr Darcy will be alive and well for the rest of my life… I would hate to see that tag leave me.”
Not much chance of that, Colin. Not much chance of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment