There’s something undeniably thrilling about getting on the phone with Mr. Darcy. Er, Mark Darcy. Colin Firth! For the record, the 53-year-old British actor says he really doesn’t mind the enduring association with two of his most iconic characters.
“I think the only misperception of the whole thing is that some people feel it’s some kind of burden,” he says. “I haven’t really seen a downside to it. It hasn’t dogged me. Unless I was to go around Googling ‘Colin Firth’ and ‘Mark Darcy,’ and I find that if you Google the word Colin you end up with information on colonoscopies. The letter I being next to the O [on a keyboard], I guess.”
Firth, who carved out an indelible place in women’s hearts as prickly antihero Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC miniseries of “Pride and Prejudice” and followed it up as that character’s modern-day incarnation in the “Bridget Jones” movies, is looking at the end of his run as the Darcys, given that author Helen Fielding’s latest, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” kills off his character.
“Someone came out of a restaurant and accused her of killing Colin Firth!” the actor says. “I can assure you that when she and I talked about it, there were no tears shed. It was more laughter than tears in that conversation.”
Firth’s latest project is significantly more serious. “The Railway Man,” out Friday and co-starring Nicole Kidman, chronicles the true story of Eric Lomax, a British soldier who was one of thousands captured by the Japanese in Singapore during World War II and forced to work in brutal conditions building the Thai-Burma railroad.
The film was an eye-opener for Firth on this chapter of World War II history. “I knew that it existed, and that it was singularly horrible,” he says. “But for me, and I think a lot of people, there’s a lack of knowledge about the scale of it. The only movie before this was ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai,’ and if you speak to veterans, they feel that’s a gross misrepresentation — it’s more of an adventure story.”
In another left turn, Firth will voice Paddington Bear, the cuddly character from the children’s books, in an upcoming holiday movie. It was a welcome change of pace, he explains. At the time, “I was busy doing stunt training for an action movie, learning how to look as if I was beating the crap out of people. And it seemed a very nice antidote to play a little fluffy bear.”
Firth, who certainly seems right for that part, says the only real feud he’s ever had was between him and Rupert Everett — of whom Firth remarked in 2002, after the two co-starred in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” that “Rupert and I hate each other.” The two made up during the making of “St. Trinian’s 2” in 2008.
“Rupert is a unique case,” Firth says. “I think we just got too old to behave the way we had behaved. And he’s mellowed rather delightfully — although I think he’d still come with a bit of a warning attached.”
Looking back over his résumé — which now extends to more than 50 films — Firth concedes some may have been duds but, with typical British diplomacy, declines to name names.
“Partly because I don’t want to draw attention to them, and partly because other people are involved,” he says. “But yes, there are some movies I’d be happy for no one to ever see again! And they’re not necessarily the ones people are critical of. On the whole, though, I’ve had such a good run — without all the pieces, I don’t think the good things would have happened.”