When it came time Firth to portray his famous spy character, Bill Haydon, to play the part, director Alfredson could haveinstructed him to read a lot of John Le Carré novels or simply rely on his memory about all the Le Carré books he had ever read.
Firth says he wasn't asked to do either one by the film's director. "Thomas Alfredson isn't an instructing sort of person, I'd read a few." Firth says of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy helmsman. "I think that everyone has. I think that he operates not in one world, but in quite a few diverse ones.
I think the source material for this was the book itself, really, and he's also very eloquent about the world around this. He very much was a first hand occupant of it in a way. Spies aren't the sort of people who are going to make themselves available for research on the whole. So, if you have someone who's been as close to the intelligence service as he has then that's pretty handy."
Early on during the film's release, Firth was quoted as saying that Le Carré books were just little boy's tales. Despite the British presses accusation, Firth was not trying to be rude, coy and dismissive about the writer's work. "I think that was probably, certainly earlier on that was probably…I mean, he's a popular writer and I think that's a bit of a crime in the critical community," says Firth, who is currently preparing to workwith Renee Zellweger on at the Bridget Jones sequel -- Bridget Jones's Baby.
"I remember somebody writing very astutely about Alan Ayckbourn, who's a great comic playwright. I think it was Michael Billington, saying that he commits the worst offenses that you can possibly commit against any judgment of being a great writer. One is that you're comic and two is that you're prolific and seen as being popular. If you're any of those things you can't be a great writer."
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/320419
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