Colin Firth
Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010
BBC
4.4 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2005
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Colin Firth. He created an iconic moment in British television history when, as Jane Austen's hero Mr Darcy, he emerged wet-shirted from his stately lake. To his surprise, he became a sex symbol, was dubbed the 'male Ursula Andress' and was voted Britain's Most Popular Actor in a BBC poll. He went on to send up the role on the big screen - as the ironically-named Mark Darcy, the brooding boyfriend of Bridget Jones.
He always knew he wanted to act - from the moment when, as a five year old boy, he took on the role of Jack Frost at a school panto. He studied at the Drama Centre in London's Chalk Farm - where one of his teachers, Christopher Fettes, said he was by nature a poet and compared his acting to that of Paul Schofield. Married to an Italian woman and with two young sons, he now divides his time between life in London and in Italy.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Opening of the Kyrie from Mass in C Minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Book: Stories by Woody Allen Luxury: His guitar
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy. |
| 0:05.4 | My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:10.7 | The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that. |
| 0:17.4 | With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to |
| 0:22.4 | helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all |
| 0:28.1 | put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life, |
| 0:34.9 | check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. |
| 0:42.2 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:45.3 | The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. |
| 0:50.7 | Music was Sue Lawley. |
| 1:07.3 | My castaway this week is an actor. |
| 1:12.1 | He's never been out of work since he left drama school 25 years ago. A familiar figure on television in the theatre and in film, he was popular with producers and audiences |
| 1:17.4 | alike for his ability to play character parts with distinction and care. And then he became a star, |
| 1:24.1 | albeit in a most unlikely way, he thinks, as the reticent hero Mr Darcy in the BBC's |
| 1:29.6 | adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. All I did, he says, was put on a costume and act. |
| 1:35.1 | But whatever he did, he's now a sex symbol as well as an actor. He played René Zellweger's lover, |
| 1:40.7 | ironically called Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones films. And we can see him next in a |
| 1:45.1 | Hollywood murder mystery called Where the Truth Lies. I've always been a chameleon, he says. The more |
| 1:51.4 | problems a character has, the more I like it. He is Colin Firth. If it's problems you like, |
| 1:58.3 | then Colin, Vince Collins, I mean the affable Englishman out front, |
| 2:03.2 | but, I mean, a dark and mysterious character underneath. |
| 2:06.1 | I mean, he was music to your ears when he came along, was he? |
... |
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