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Colin arrives at the Girl With A Pearl
Earring screening.
The star, who set hearts aflutter in
Pride And Prejudice confesses he doesn't get swept away by film
romance. "I'm not the type of romantic who enjoys the weepy movie and then
sighs sweetly about it," he says. |
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12 SEPTEMBER 2003
Reluctant heart-throb Colin Firth gave his perspective on love in Toronto
this week as he spoke about his latest film role, Girl With A Pearl
Earring, in which he plays 17th-century Dutch painter Jan Vermeer.
A work of historical fiction, the movie delves into the home life of the
artist, his marriage and an unconsummated relationship with his maid and
muse. "You can't really tell a great romantic love story about a happily
married couple," the father-of-three told a Canadian newspaper. "Domestic
bliss is the stuff of sitcom. Great love has to have an element of the
impossible. Whether Romeo and Juliet, or Tristan and Isolde, they're kept
apart. Even in Jane Austen, they only finish with the coming together, you
don't even get to a kiss in the books."
Though he's famed for heart-throb
roles in films such as Bridget Jones' Diary and Pride And Prejudice, Colin
stops short of calling himself a romantic. "I'm interested in emotion, its
complications," he says. "I'm not necessarily an optimist in terms of
romantic love. I'm not the type of romantic who enjoys the weepy movie and
then sighs sweetly about it. I'm more interested in the obstacles and the
impossible than I am in resolution and happiness."
Regardless, it's that famed wet-shirted image of Darcy that seems to
follow the actor wherever he goes – but Colin doesn't seem to mind. "He's
certainly taken over my public life, and interviews – and he helps me get
a table in a restaurant," he said during the Toronto movie fest, adding:
"I doubt if I would be doing Girl With A Pearl Earring right now if it
wasn't for Mark Darcy." |