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Inspiration can come from the oddest of places. In the
case of actor Colin Firth, the key to playing 17th-century artist Johannes
Vermeer came from the soft, dusty light in the corner of a long-gone room.
The end result, "Girl With a Pearl Earring," co-starring Firth and
Scarlett Johansson, opens this Friday at the Seven Gables and the Uptown.
As very little is known of Vermeer's actual life, Firth had to find
meaning in the paintings. "When you've got a bit of a blank canvas, you
just have to impose your own notions on it," said the actor in a telephone
interview. "I couldn't make up my mind whether (Vermeer) was a tortured
soul or a rather serene fellow."
But that corner of the studio, where so many of Vermeer's great works were
created, haunted Firth. "I thought, that corner of that room that he keeps
painting, maybe there's a restlessness to that, despite the seeming
serenity of the paintings themselves. I thought, is he trying to solve
something? Is he looking for something there?
"That was something that I could bear in mind when I'm in front of the
cameras he is someone who is constantly looking for that serenity that
he portrays, and he seems to keep looking for it in the same spot. He's
got the whole rest of the town to paint there's one example of a
cityscape, one exterior of houses, a few others. The rest of the time, he
paints the same corner of the same room, over and over."
In the film, Firth's Vermeer is a quiet man, seemingly overshadowed by his
petulant wife and regal mother-in-law, frustrated by the demands of his
patron Master van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), who seems to want to control
the artist like a puppetmaster pulling strings. But in the crisp,
blue-gray light of the almost-bare studio, he breathes more freely like
he's in control of this small but perfect domain.
Author appearance
Tracy Chevalier, who wrote the book on which the movie "Girl With a Pearl
Earring" is based, will read from her new art-inspired novel "The Lady and
the Unicorn" at 7 p.m. Friday, Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave.,
Seattle, free (206-322-7030).
Firth, no stranger to period roles (he's perhaps best known for his
dashing performance as Mr. Darcy in the BBC miniseries "Pride and
Prejudice"), viewed as many Vermeer originals as possible in preparation
for the role, though he says it takes "a bit of a world tour" to see them
all. Four of them reside handily in London "the best one the Queen's
got, under a bit of strip lighting next to a picture of a horse." (It's
clear what he thinks of Her Majesty's curatorial standards.)
And he worked to keep the story simple, letting images and actions speak
louder than words. "What I brought to it was a feeling of, the less said
the better. A lot of the paring down of dialogue was my responsibility.
With the full endorsement, I must say, of the writer (Olivia Hetreed, who
adapted Tracey Chevalier's novel). She was always looking out for a
possibility of economizing."
Firth, also recently seen in theaters in the romantic comedy "Love
Actually," is currently at work filming another big-screen adaptation.
"Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason," a sequel to the popular 2001 film
"Bridget Jones's Diary," will be in theaters in late 2004, with Firth,
Hugh Grant and Renιe Zellweger reprising their roles. Though Firth said he
was initially reluctant to make a sequel, he now says he has "high hopes"
for the film. "The only sensible attitude to it was to be cautious. People
want the same film and they don't want the same film. You have to really
hit the right note with this thing. As long as you can take it forward in
some way, it's justified."
The classically-trained actor, whose dark eyes and stalwart bearing have
inspired legions of female fans, is amused by his inadvertent heartthrob
status. (Told of a colleague who packed her "Pride and Prejudice" tape for
a trip to the labor room, his response was a heartfelt and horrified
"Oh my God!")
In Helen Fielding's book "The Edge of Reason," on which the "Bridget
Jones" movie sequel is based, the fictional Bridget conducts an interview
with the non-fictional Colin Firth. Unfortunately she keeps getting
muddled because she's obsessed with the "Pride and Prejudice" scene,
beloved by many, in which Mr. Darcy jumps into a lake and his shirt gets
wet and clingy.
"I did that interview with Helen Fielding," Firth remembered. "She didn't
make it up, we actually did it. It's fun to be written into a piece of
fiction. I guess that sort of thing is more common because popular culture
draws on itself increasingly for its sources."
Mindful of the power of surprise, Firth politely declined to discuss how
that particular scene would be handled in the film. Nor would he comment
on whether the notorious reindeer sweater, worn by the hapless Mark Darcy
in "Bridget Jones's Diary" would reappear.
Mark Darcy was, undoubtedly, less of a challenge than Vermeer though in
retrospect, Firth thinks he found the latter character only when he
stopped working so hard. "In some ways, I reached my frustration in not
being able to nail anything about (Vermeer)," he says. "I just thought,
maybe this is it you can't define anything. So I stopped trying, and let
that somehow characterize what you do." |
