To many Jane Austen lovers, Colin Firth is Mr. Darcy. Though he had been acting for years before, Firth became famous "overnight," when he starred in the BBC television mini-series Pride and Prejudice.
Born September 10, 1960, in Grayshott, Hampshire, UK, Firth lived in Nigeria with his parents until he was four years old. He studied drama in London, and made his professional stage debut in 1983 replacing Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett in Another Country. He went on to make the film of that play, this time playing Tommy Judd opposite Everett's Bennett. In 1989, Firth had his first starring film role, in Valmont, and that same year, he received rave reviews for his portrayal of real-life Scottish soldier Robert Lawrence who had been left paralyzed in Tumbledown.
In 2009, Firth received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a college professor struggling with the loss of his longtime partner in Tom Ford'sA Single Man. He won a BAFTA and a Volpi Cup for the part, and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Firth has garnered rave reviews on the stage for his performance in the London premiere of Three Days of Rain (1999) and in a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet (2001).
In 2011, Firth added to his cache of awards for his turn in The King's Speech as George VI, the reluctant king of England, who overcame a serious stutter with the help of his speech therapist Lionel Logue. He won the Oscar for Best Actor, a Golden Globe, a SAG award, and a Bafta, among others.
Firth and his wife, Livia Giuggioli, have two sons. Firth also has a son from a former relationship with actress Meg Tilly.
As Mr. Darcy in the acclaimed 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Colin Firth induced record increases in estrogen levels on both sides of the Atlantic. Imbuing his role as one of literature's most obstinate lovers with surly, understated charisma, Firth caused many a viewer to wonder where he had been for so long, even though he had in fact been appearing in television and film for years.
The son of two university lecturers, Firth was born in England's Hampshire county on September 10, 1960. Part of his early childhood was spent in Nigeria with missionary grandparents, but he returned for schooling in his native country and eventually enrolled in the Drama Centre in Chalk Farm. While playing Hamlet in a school production during his final term, the actor was discovered, and he went on to make his London stage debut in the West End production of Julian Mitchell's Another Country. Starring opposite Rupert Everett, Firth played Tommy Judd, a character based on spy-scandal figurehead Donald Maclean (Everett played Guy Bennett, based on real-life spy Guy Burgess). He went on to reprise his role for the play's 1984 film version, again playing opposite Everett.
Despite such an auspicious beginning to his career, Firth spent the rest of the decade and half of the next working in relative obscurity; he starred in a number of television productions -- including the highly acclaimed 1993 Hostages -- and worked steadily in film. Some of his more notable work included A Month in the Country, in which he played a World War I veteran opposite Kenneth Branagh and Natasha Richardson, and Valmont, Milos Forman's 1989 adaptation of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, in which Firth starred in the title role. The film also provided him with an introduction to co-star Meg Tilly, with whom he had a son.
However, it was not until he again donned breeches and a waistcoat that Firth started to emerge from the shadows of BBC programming. With his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the popular TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Firth was propelled into the media spotlight, touted in a number of articles as the latest in the long line of thinking women's crumpets; he was further rewarded for his work with a BAFTA award. The same year, he appeared as an amorous cad in the similarly popular Circle of Friends and went on the next year to appear as Kristin Scott Thomas' cuckolded husband in The English Patient. Firth garnered praise for his role in the film, which went on to win international acclaim and Academy Awards.
After a turn as a morally ambiguous man who gets involved with both Jessica Lange and Michelle Pfeiffer in A Thousand Acres, Firth took a comically sinister turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's intended husband in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love. The following year, he starred in two very different movies: My Life So Far, a tale of family dysfunction in the Scottish Highlands, and Fever Pitch, initially released in the U.K. in 1997, in which Firth played a rabid English football fan forced to choose between his love of the sport and the woman in his life.
Headlining the low-key comedy My Life So Far the following year, Firth's performance as the father of a family living in a post World War I British estate was only one of five roles that the busy actor would essay that particular year (including that of William Shakespeare in Blackadder Back and Forth). His finale of the year -- Donovan Quick -- offered a memorable updating of the legend of Don Quixote with Firth himself in the titular role. Firth's supporting role in the 2001 comedy Bridget Jones's Diary preceded a more weighty performance in the chilling drama Conspiracy, with the former earning him a BAFTA nomination and the latter an Emmy nod. Comic performances in Londinium (2001) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) found Firth continuing to maintain his reputation as one of England's most talented comic exports, and if his lead in 2003's Hope Springs failed to capitalize on his recent string of success, his role as teen starlet Amanda Bynes' celluloid father in What a Girl Wants (2003) at least endeared him to a new generation of moviegoers before the adult-oriented drama Girl With a Pearl Earring hit theaters later that same year. After rounding out the busy year with a return to romantic comedy in Love Actually, Firth kicked off 2004 with a turn as a haunted widower in Trauma while preparing to return to familiar territory in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
Firth continued to work steadily in projects ranging from the family friendly Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson to the hit musical Mama Mia, playing one of the three men who might have fathered Meryl Streep's daughter. But it was his leading role in fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut, A Single Man, that garnered him awards attention like he had never received previously. For his work as a gay professor grieving the death of his lover, Firth scored nominations from the Screen Actors Guild, the Academy, and the Independent Spirit Awards. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi
Firth was born in England. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College Winchester (now the University of Winchester), and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government.[1][2][3] Firth has a sister, Kate, and a younger brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor. Firth's parents were raised in India,[4] because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed missionary work abroad.[5][6][7][8] Firth spent part of his childhood in Nigeria, where his father was teaching.[9]
Firth at the Nanny McPhee London premiere in October 2005
It was through the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that Firth gained wider renown. The serial was a major international success, and Firth gained heartthrob status[citation needed] because of his role as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, in which he emerged in a wet shirt after a swim.[citation needed] This performance also made him the object of affection for fictional journalist Bridget Jones (created by Helen Fielding), an interest which carried on into the two novels featuring the Jones character. In the second novel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the character even meets Firth in Rome. As something of an in-joke, when the novels were adapted for the cinema, Firth was cast as Jones's love interest, Mark Darcy.[citation needed] Continuing this in-joke, there was a dog called Mr Darcy in the film St. Trinian's, which Firth's character accidentally kills.[citation needed]
He has also appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999) and Conspiracy (2001), for which he received an Emmy nomination.[13] Colin Firth's most recent role is in the Toronto International Film Festival debuted film, Genova.[14]
At the 66th Venice International Film Festival in 2009, Colin Firth was awarded the Volpi Cup for Best Actor for his role in Tom Ford's A Single Man as a college professor grappling with solitude after his longtime partner dies. Fashion designer Tom Ford made his director's debut with this movie. This role has earned Firth career best reviews and Academy Award, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA, and BFCA nominations; he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in February 2010.[15]
In 2011, Firth collaborated with colleagues at the University College London to conduct a study probing differences in the volume of various brain regions in conservatives and liberals,[22][23] with the results suggesting that conservatives have greater amygdala volume and liberals have greater volume in their anterior cingulate cortex.
Firth's first published work, "The Department of Nothing", appeared in Speaking with the Angel (2000).[25] This collection of short stories was edited by Nick Hornby[26] and was published to benefit the TreeHouse Trust,[27] in aid of autistic children. Firth had previously met Hornby during the filming of the original Fever Pitch.[28][29] Colin Firth contributed with his writing for the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in 2009.[30] The book explores the culture of peoples around the world, portraying both its diversity and facing threats. It counts with the contributions of many western writers, such as Laurens van der Post, Noam Chomsky, Claude Lévi-Strauss; and also indigenous peoples, such as Davi Kopenawa Yanomami and Roy Sesana. The royalties from the sale of this book go to the indigenous rights organisation, Survival International.
Firth resides in Chiswick, London. In 1989, he entered into a romantic relationship with actress Meg Tilly, his co-star in Valmont. In 1990, she gave birth to a son, William "Will" Joseph Firth, and they made their home near the Lower Mainland of B.C., Canada. Firth remains in contact with Will and with Tilly's two other children. In 1994, after he and Tilly had separated, Firth became involved with actress Jennifer Ehle, his co-star in Pride and Prejudice; however, the two broke up and in 1997 Firth married Italian film producer/director Livia Giuggioli, and now lives in both London and Italy.[31] They have two sons, Luca (born March 2001) and Matteo (born August 2003).[citation needed] Firth started to learn Italian when he and Giuggioli began to date and he now is fluent in the language. Firth is a supporter of Southampton F.C..
On 13 January 2011, he was presented with the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[32]
In April 2011, Time magazine included Firth in its list of the world's 100 Most Influential People.[33]
Firth has been a long-standing supporter of Survival International, a non-governmental organisation that defends the rights of tribal peoples.[35] Speaking in 2001, he said, "My interest in tribal peoples goes back many years... and I have supported [Survival] ever since."[36] In 2003, during the promotion of the movie Love Actually, he spoke in defense of the tribal people of Botswana, condemning the Botswana government's eviction of the Gana and Gwi Bushmen from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. He says of the Bushmen, "These people are not the remnants of a past era who need to be brought up to date. Those who are able to continue to live on the land that is rightfully theirs are facing the 21st century with a confidence that many of us in the so-called developed world can only envy."[35] He has also backed a Survival International campaign to press the Brazilian government to take more decisive action in defence of the Awá-Guajá people, whose land and livelihood is critically threatened by the actions of loggers.[37]
Firth has been involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a group of asylum seekers, because he believed that they might be murdered on their return to the Democratic Republic of Congo.[38] Firth argued that "To me it's just basic civilisation to help people. I find this incredibly painful to see how we dismiss the most desperate people in our society. It's easily done. It plays to the tabloids, to the Middle-Englandxenophobes. It just makes me furious. And all from a government we once had such high hopes for".[39] As a result of the campaign, a Congolese nurse was given a last-minute reprieve from deportation.[40]
Firth has also been involved in the Oxfam[41] global campaign Make Trade Fair,[42] in which several other celebrities participated as well in order to bring more attention to the issues involved.[43] The campaign has focused on several trade practices seen as unfair to third world producers especially, including dumping, high import tariffs, and labour rights such as fair wages. Firth remains deeply committed to this cause, making efforts such as supporting fair trade coffee in his daily life, as he believes "[i]f you're going to sustain commitment to any of this, ... [y]ou've got to get involved on an ordinary every day basis."[44] He has further contributed to this cause by opening (with a few collaborators) an eco-friendly shop in West London, Eco.[45] The shop offers fair trade and eco-friendly goods, as well as expert advice on making spaces more energy efficient.
During to the 2010 General Election Firth announced his support for the Liberal Democrats, having previously been a Labour supporter, citing asylum and refugees' rights as a key reason for his change in affiliation.[48] In December 2010, Firth publicly dropped his support of the Liberal Democrats, citing their U-turn on tuition fees as one of the key reasons for his disillusionment. He also said that while he no longer supports the Liberal Democrats, he is currently without an affiliation.[49] Firth appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the unsuccessful Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.[50]
Colin is also committed to protecting the environment; in 2009 he joined the 10:10 project to support the movement calling for people to reduce their carbon footprint.
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