Colin Firth

Colin Andrew Firth 

10 September 1960

An English actor. By the time he was fourteen, Firth had already decided he wanted to be a professional actor, having attended drama workshops from the age of ten. At Barton Peveril Sixth form college in Eastleigh he became instilled with a love of English literature thanks to an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards. After his sixth form years, Firth moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre. There, he made many contacts in the acting world, from which he got a job in the wardrobe department at the National Theatre. From there he went on to study at Drama Centre London. 

Colin Firth has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, two BAFTAs and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup. His most notable and acclaimed role to date has been his 2010 portrayal of King George VI in "The King's Speech", a performance that gained him an Oscar and many other worldwide best actor awards. In 2011, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was also selected as one of the Time 100. He was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Winchester in 2007, and was made a Freeman of the City of London in 2012. Firth has campaigned for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples and is a member of Survival International. He has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers and refugees' rights and the environment. Firth commissioned and is credited as a co-author on a scientific paper on a study into the differences in brain structure between people of differing political orientations.

As actor

• Another Country (1984)
• Camille (1984)
• 1919 (1985)
• Dutch Girls (1985)
• A Month in the Country (1987)
• The Secret Garden (1987)
• Tumbledown (1988)
• Apartment Zero (1989)
• Valmont (1989)
• Femme Fatale (1990)
• Wings of Fame (1990)
• Out of the Blue (1991)
• Hostages (1993)
• The Hour of the Pig (1993)
• Master of the Moor (1994)
• Playmaker (1994)
• The Deep Blue Sea (1994)
• Circle of Friends (1995)
• Pride and Prejudice (1995)
• The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd (1995)
• The English Patient (1996)
• A Thousand Acres (1997)
• Fever Pitch (1997)
• Nostromo (1997)
• Shakespeare in Love (1998)
• Blackadder: Back & Forth (1999)
• Donovan Quick (1999)
• My Life So Far (1999)
• The Secret Laughter of Women (1999)
• The Turn of the Screw (1999)
• Relative Values (2000)
• Bridget Jones's Diary (2001)
• Conspiracy (2001)
• We Know Where You Live (2001)
• Fourplay (2001)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (2002)
• Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
• Hope Springs (2003)
• Love Actually (2003)
• What a Girl Wants (2003)
• Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
• Trauma (2004)
• Nanny McPhee (2005)
• Where the Truth Lies (2005)
• Born Equal (2006)
• The Last Legion (2007)
• And When Did You Last See Your Father? (2007)
• Then She Found Me (2007)
• St Trinian's (2007)
• In Prison My Whole Life (2007)
• The Accidental Husband (2008)
• Mamma Mia! (2008)
• Easy Virtue (2008)
• Genova (2008)
• A Christmas Carol (2009)
• Dorian Gray (2009)
• A Single Man (2009)
• St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009)
• The King's Speech (2010)
• Main Street (2010)
• Steve (2010)
• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
• Stars in Shorts (2012)
• Gambit (2013)
• Arthur Newman (2013)
• The Railway Man (2014)
• Devil's Knot (2014)
• Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
• Before I Go to Sleep (2014)
• Eye in the Sky (2015)
• Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
• Eye in the Sky (2015)
• Genius (2016)
• Loving (2016)
• Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016)
• Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
• The Mercy (2017)
• The Happy Prince (2017)
• Mary Poppins Returns (2017)

Quotations

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My singing voice is somewhere between a drunken apology and a plumbing problem.

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We all know the dangers of sequels. Lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place too often, and I think you've got to move beyond it, go the extra mile and have the courage not to just repeat the first one.

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Some people would say comedy draws from some dark places, from your dark stuff. Life's great optimists aren't necessarily the funniest people.

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I absolutely don't care about my looks and I'm so used to them that I wouldn't change a thing. I would end up missing my defects.

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Forget trying to be sexy. That's just gruesome.

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I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.

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As much as the next person, I want to be approved of, but I'm not greedy for that stuff.

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It used to be that I was always paranoid or a loser or something so there's usually something that you seem to associate yourself with at one time or another.

* * *

The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.

* * *

Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.

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I do think I'm a character actor.

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If you don't mind haunting the margins, I think there is more freedom there.

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Most actors will tell you they have some sort of dream of doing something other than what they're doing.

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I have a very long relationship with America. My mother grew up there and I felt to some extent that I partly belong there. I was schooled there briefly for about a year.

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