“A masterclass”: The greatest British actor of all time, according to Colin Firth
It’s difficult to put your finger on exactly when it happened, probably around the early 2010s, but at some point, Colin Firth became absolutely cool as fuck.
One moment, he was one of those upper-class acting ‘chaps’ you’d see in endless boring period dramas, the next he was the sharp-suited, movie-stealing, ‘kill someone with an umbrella and then casually sip a pint’ film star with utter presence that we see these days.
I know which one I prefer, but then I despise period dramas, and of course the major driving change behind this transformation was his taking on the role of secret agent Harry Hart in 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service, the Matthew Vaughn-directed slice of comic-book fun that introduced the world to Taron Egerton and turned an Oscar-winner for playing a stammering King George VI into a bespectacled guy you would not ever mess with in a flat-roofed boozer.
Since then, he’s been adding well-spoken gravitas to pretty much everything he’s been in, from a Kingsman sequel to stiff upper-lipped military men in 1917 and Operation Mincemeat, while remembering to throw in something for the wine-supping female fans too, with another Bridget Jones movie in the shape of the well-reviewed Mad About the Boy from last year.
Firth has also made a pair of heavy-rimmed black spectacles a fairly familiar part of his persona on regular occasions, and that might well be a nod to one of his own film heroes, another British acting legend who only recently stepped away from making movies after a hit-packed seven-decade career.
Asked by Shortlist to name who he thought was the British man he admired most, Firth replied, “Michael Caine. He’s a masterclass in not being precious. Someone asked him what the secret to being a film star is, and he said, ‘I don’t blink’. OK, he might have been being a bit arch, but there’s something to be gleaned from everything he says.”
‘Arch’ in that context, by the way, essentially means to be playful, but Caine is certainly known for his belief in eyes genuinely being the window to the soul, especially where acting is concerned, and you only have to see the clip of his explaining the art of changing camera perspective by ‘picking an eye’ to know that.
Fans of Firth will be excited by the fact he has got plenty of projects coming up, including more disposing of ne’er-do-wells in the most stylish manner imaginable, thanks to another outing as Harry Hart in a fourth Kingsman movie, this time titled Blue Blood, which will see the original cast reunite under Vaughn once more, including Egerton coming back as ‘Eggsy’.
Firth will also pop up in the new Steven Spielberg sci-fi Disclosure Day, which releases in June and will see him pair up once again with Emily Blunt. The two actors worked together as the leads in 2012’s comedy drama Arthur Newman about a former pro golfer who fakes his own death and tries to assume a new identity, joined by a young woman who is also trying to escape her past.
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