By Mike Ryan
When I met Colin Firth at his hotel during the Toronto International Film Festival, he immediately apologized for being, in his words, "fried" from jetlag. From this point forward, if I ever interview Colin Firth again, I'd like to request that he be "fried" from jetlag. I've interviewed Firth twice before, and he's always been extremely polite and cordial. This time, however, I met a Firth -- the "fried" Firth -- that I had never met before: The very candid Colin Firth.
Firth is at the festival in support of "Arthur Newman" (originally titled "Arthur Newman, Golf Pro") a movie about a man who changes his identity, just seeking a blank slate in life. (In the movie, the goal of Firth's character is to work as a golf instructor in Terre Haute, Indiana.) The theme of the film led to a discussion about Firth's own fame and if he ever fantasized about giving that up for a taste of anonymity. His answers paint a picture of celebrity that doesn't sound particularly appealing. We also discussed what Firth admits is one of his favorite achievements: Hosting "Saturday Night Live," of all things. Something he'd love to do again. (And if someone from "SNL" reads this, maybe that will happen again.)
Hello, sir.
I know you, right?
I've interviewed you twice before. We've discussed you living in St. Louis for a year.
Oh, yes. Yeah, I just got off the plane, too. You have me at a bit of a disadvantage. You know what I realized, is that almost everything we get that's written about film or spoken about it is by people who are all completely fried.
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I feel it's hard to make a golf movies I don't know why. And I know it's not really a golf movie.
No, it isn't. I mean, it's two fleeting moments when you see someone take a golf swing.
It's certainly not "Tin Cup."
No. In fact, it's got almost nothing to do with golf at all.
Is that why "Golf Pro" was taken out of the title?
Well, there was wrangling over the title. I mean, I liked the title, because I read a lot of material, and I thought that the title, in some ways, was so strange and off-putting that the script had to be interesting. It couldn't just be about the life of a golf pro. And indeed, it is not. He's every bit not the golf pro. It's a lose-lose situation. I mean, this film, it's not exactly generic.
Have you ever felt like Arthur? You're very famous. Have you ever wanted to be a different person and just go away for a while and do something else?
Well, not really.
But being famous has to get old sometimes. Or, maybe it doesn't.
I don't think an uncommon fantasy that people have fleetingly, is -- you know, could I just have a clean slate? Is there somewhere where I could start again. Just the idea that could I start again, you know? If there's such a thing as starting again? Some version of a self-imposed witness protection program? Just even contemplating that possibility, I think, could be reassuring. The thing is, I don't think I have it much myself, partly because I make a living out of it. I make excursions away from my own identity and my own reality all the time. Even characters that I've become associated with are a pretty long way from me or my background. And so, I think if I have an impulse to evade the banal realities of my life, it gets taken care of by what I do. The thing about anonymity, I think, may have fascinated me a little bit, because after a certain amount of time in this profession, if your face is on the screen, you forfeit complete anonymity. And I think there's a cost.
That's interesting. Did you ever wish you had that anonymity?
I do.
At what time?
Any time with my children, probably.
That makes sense.
I was listening to an interview with an actor who's much more famous than I am. The way he answered the question was, "I can't take my kids to the mall." And there are an awful lot of benefits to my situation. But I think obviously everything comes at a cost. Every perk you have, it's balanced off with a price that's paid somewhere -- and one doesn't spend a great deal of time complaining about it, but I think it would be bogus to not acknowledge that it can be quite a heavy price to pay.
I always get the impression for someone in your position that it would be nice to have an on-off switch.
Well, if you think what Arthur Newman does -- or what Wallace Avery does -- if he decides to, he's going to have a clean slate. He really doesn't have a lot of friends. There aren't a lot of people in his life. Not a lot of people are paying attention.
it's a sad story.
It is sad. He's not going to go and make a mark. And it's very easy for him to do that -- he thinks, anyway. But if you're a very well-known person, you not only can't hope to do that, you can't start fresh with anybody you ever meet again.
I've never even thought of that before. That's interesting. Because people already have an opinion of you?
You have forfeited the clean slate forever. You might have a person in front of you who's a clean slate, but you can't be a clean slate, as well. Now, how much of a misfortune that is can be debated. I don't know. But it's just a fact. That where the person knows you ‑‑ and they don't, actually, but they might think they do. Or they have a preconception or your face will be familiar, or this stuff they know ‑‑ they'd have seen you in action. They'd have heard your voice, so you're not two complete and utter strangers coming together for the first time. And I think there's something quite wonderful about the unexpected, with two complete strangers meeting. Now, a very well-known person can never really have that, because it's one-sided. And I'm not even putting an interpretation on it; it's just a fact that that's how it has to be.
***
I think I'm going to start an online campaign to get you to host of "SNL" again.
[Laughs] I'd love to do it again. I mean, we must have talked about it this last time, did we?
Yeah. The sketch with the soldier.
Oh, and the accent, yeah.
I want to see you host again. You were so good the first time. I think you did great.
It was utterly thrilling.
There's nothing like it, right?
Nothing like it. In fact, I was talked into ‑‑ I was a little scared doing it.
Most people are, though. That's a good thing.
That's precisely why I wanted to do it and I wasn't as aware of it ‑‑ we'd imported almost everything the United States has made in the entertainment industry, but we never really got "SNL." It just never appeared on our screens in the same way, or if it did, it was marginalized. People aren't as aware of it in the U.K. as we are of so many of the major institutions.
Probably because it couldn't run live -- and watching it live is what makes it so exciting.
That's entirely why. Everything that's come on out of "SNL," we're aware of. The actors it has produced and the spinoffs like "Wayne's World" and the "Blues Brothers," we've seen -- and so on and so forth. So, it's made its mark. But, I didn't quite know what it was. It had to be explained.
So you didn't know quite what you were getting into? It's quite a commitment.
They had to send me tapes that this is what "SNL" is.
And it's not just showing up on Letterman or something for a few hours, it's a week-long commitment.
No. You take a real white-knuckle ride with people who are pros and, if I had it to do again, I would arrive a week ahead and turn around on the jetlag, for a start, because that's intense. It's only a five-hour turnaround from England, but it's another turnaround again, because they live at night. They're nocturnal creatures.
And Tuesday night, they do all night writing.
That's right, because they have to be turned around for the midnight show. And I think Lorne Michaels said something along the line ‑‑ I may have quoted you this before ‑‑ but, you know, we go out live at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday night, not because you're ready, but because it's 11:30 p.m. And by that time, you're going to be on live TV doing sketches that have not even been thought up yet. And it was like extreme sports or something. I don't do extreme sports. That was my version of it.
Is this up there on the list of "Things I've done"?
Yeah, I think it is. I mean, I remember a few days later, I had a terrible, deflating decompression. And I missed it and I realized I was missing the adrenaline rush. I wanted to go back there. And, also, I was just left with huge admiration for these people, this team of people that just keep taking that risk all the time. They fly by the seat of their pants.
READ MORE OF THIS WONDERFUL INTERVIEW HERE: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/colin-firth_n_1872168.html?utm_hp_ref=entertainment
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