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It wasn’t so long ago that a British actor could expect to be sidelined into vile villains and camp best friends if he wanted a movie career. Now the First Class departure lounges at Heathrow are bustling with Equity members, able to pit their talents alongside their Hollywood counterparts as Colin Firth proves, in The Accidental Husband.
It’s instructive to note that when Colin Firth was embarking on his film career some 24 years ago the prospects for a British actor who fancied a sustained run on the big screen were mixed. Hollywood offered employment, but not much beyond playing a Brit abroad if you chose a line between roles as stereotyped outsiders that were expected of you.
Domestically things were in a parlous state, with the usual tribulations over financing, production and distribution culminating in the annus horribilis of 1986 when three films – Revolution, Absolute Beginners and The Mission – were overburdened with the hopes of the whole British film industry.
Twenty odd years on and production is, if not booming then in a healthy state with British technicians a match for any of their peers. Production facilities such as Pinewood and Shepperton provided a sharp technological cutting edge, with Leavesden remaining the home to Harry Potter and smaller studios such as Ealing accommodating more modest productions.
The acting pool continues to impress with its depth and, the likes of Colin Firth are reaping the benefits, building upon the success afforded by indie movie hits and small screen success, to fashion a career that sees him move from movie to movie in a way he might initially have thought impossible.
Yet still the challenge for the individual is still proving yourself to be the sum of many parts and not just the product of one. Given the fond association in the minds of British television audiences with his performance as Mr Darcy 13 years ago, in a BBC production of Pride & Prejudice, he is at pains to draw a distinction between the quintessential Englishman so many might picture when they think of him.
"I've decided the quintessential Englishman doesn't exist," says Firth. "I mean, I play him but you don’t run into him very often. I think he’s a figment of our folklore, or film lore. I do realise that there are some versions of that figure that tend to appear in my work. But if you actually look for examples of people who are really like that they’re usually rather overplayed arch versions of themselves.
"It was interesting, I was being questioned by a group of Greek journalists while I was doing Mamma Mia! and they were insisting on the stereotypical Englishman. That no Englishman had ever grown his hair long, played the electric guitar, pierced his ear, it had never happened. There was no Johnny Rotten, no John Lennon. None of those things had happened, it was only - in their view - Prince Philip. I pointed out that he happens to be Greek."
The satisfaction of making that distinction is clear in his broad smile as he tells this story. And it is obviously possible to play many different Englishman without resorting to stereotype, though The Accidental Husband relies upon an innate decency in Firth’s character to make his position in this romantic-comedy love triangle tenable.
The irony is that Firth himself has a more cosmopolitan background, having spent some of his adolescent years living in America. Darcy and his in-jokey counterpart in the Bridget Jones films aside, Firth’s best work on screen has come when he has played against the so called national characteristics of the British male.
In recent times there has been the raw emotional honesty of When Did You Last See Your Father? for example. Going further back there was the brooding intensity of Vermeer in Girl With A Pearl Earring, and the flawed (Arsenal fan) but decent hero of Fever Pitch.
And even in imperfect tales such as Trauma and Where The Truth Lies there are signs of an actor eager to challenge expectation and stretch himself beyond the perceived boundaries of what he could - and should - do. That he has such opportunities is a sign of how far British cinema has travelled in the last quarter of a century.
ANWAR BRETT
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