Firth among equals

Colin Firth gestures toward the window of Dublin’s Four Seasons and into the great beyond. “It’s been 15 years since I made it over to Ireland. I used to come here all the time. Especially to Kilkenny. Pat O’Connor is probably my best friend. Has been for decades. So I filmed here briefly for Circle of Friends. And somehow it’s 15 years. I‘ve missed the entire economic boom.”

And he’s brought economic depression back with him.
“In my defence, I think that was happening before I’ve arrived. I have depressions of my own to be getting on with.”
We’ll forgive him this lapse in Hibernophilic duty. He has, after all, been rather busy since playing the cad in Pat O’Connor’s 1995 period romance. That same year, as any rabid Colin watcher might tell you, brought the first run of a little BBC drama called Pride and Prejudice.
The rest, as they say, is history. He claims that his personal holy trinity comprises his mum, his wife and Jane Austen, but being Mr. Darcy isn’t always an easy task. Later that evening, Genova, a fine new acting vehicle for the 48 year-old, premieres at the Jameson Dublin Film Festival and the Darcy Brides – as they like to call themselves – are out in full force to ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ in Mr. Firth’s presence.
They are Legion.
“Honestly,” he says, “I think it’s just a habit now. I don’t think I have anything to do with it anymore.”
He remains the thinking housewife’s choice thanks to a series of similarly dashing leading man roles in such titanic hits as Girl With The Pearl Earring, Nanny McPhee and, of course, the Bridget Jones franchise.
But in between turns as Mr. Darcy ersatz, Mr. Firth, has repeatedly proved his acting chops. He was the grieving adulterer of And When Did you Last See Your Father?, the hopeless headmaster of St. Trinian’s and a singing closet gay in Mamma Mia.
“The craft that has to go into to making something look artless like Mamma Mia is astonishing,” he says of that unfairly maligned picture. “You have to watch it happen around you for four months to understand it. Some of the more dismissive critics – I mean critics with a small ‘c’ – made it sound like a free for all. I don’t mind for myself. But for the people who had to construct it to make it look like a party atmosphere, it wasn’t fair. If it looks like everybody is having fun on screen, chances are they are having the opposite of fun.”
He admits, however, that frolicking around a Greek island, was at least, less emotionally draining than his work on Genova, which he shot simultaneously with the ABBA love-in.
“I’d just be getting used to the cracking of the whip and the musical director getting frustrated and then it was off to Genova where we improvised a lot. There was only a camera and no lights. Mostly we wondered around. It was unplanned. We never blocked off streets. People had to jump into laundry baskets to get out of the shot. It’s a great way to work.”
In a nutshell, Genova is director Michael Winterbottom’s Don’t Look Now. In a harrowing opening sequence, a little girl’s peek-a-boo game goes horribly wrong when her mother (Hope Davis) loses control of the car she is driving. The child survives, but when dad (Colin Firth) relocates to the titular sunny Italian city with his two grieving daughters, odd things start to occur. Are the child’s recurring nightmares a manifestation of guilt and loss? Or is something spooky going on?
“I loved the ambiguity of it,” says Mr. Firth. “Whatever you believe about the supernatural element isn’t really important. The little girl needs to see her mother. He doesn’t really matter whether she has conjured her mother in her mind or whether something supernatural is happening independently.”
The actor does excellent work as the suffering, frequently bewildered father in a picture that was filmed with typical Winterbottom spontaneity.
“Michael never says action of cut,” he says. “He just walks along shooting. He’s not out to trick you but you just never know. I have come out of the loo in a restaurant and found him standing there with a camera. He‘s someone I‘ve always wanted to work with. You just need to sleep with one eye open.”
A lovely enigmatic thriller, the star is, he says, particularly proud of this one. So much so, he’s even happy to talk to the press.
“Well, not really,” he says, correcting himself.
But you’re always pretty good at talking to the press, I point out. He’s even given me an interview before now.
“Well, I talk a lot. And I’m quite easy to get chatting. And if I like the film a lot then it’s fine. I don’t have a hermit like attitude toward these things but, well, sometimes during these things I feel an extreme desire to withdraw. I don’t like chatting about my wife or family or any of the private stuff. When you make a film like Genova it makes it a little easier because there are all these talking points so everybody is talking about those. When you’re doing interviews for romantic comedies, it’s tough on you and it’s tough on the journalist. They’re just as stuck as you are and you end up in this vortex of inanity. If I hear ‘What’s it like kissing so-and-so one more time...”
He puts his head in his hands.
“Look at me,” he smiles. “I’m just a big luvvie, really”.

Genova opens March 27