Colin Firth: Caffeinated and impassioned in Toronto

DETROIT FREE PRESS
by Donna Freydkin, USA TODAY

TORONTO - Colin Firth doesn't mind aging himself. "I've been coming here since the late '80s, when it was so much smaller," says the Oscar winner regarding the International Film Festival, which runs through Sept. 15. He's been here for The King's Speech and A Single Man - winning an Oscar for the former and being nominated for the latter.

And this year, Firth is headlining the war drama The Railway Man, directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and co-starring Nicole Kidman, based on Eric Lomax's autobiography of the same name.

In the film (no U.S. release date yet) and the book, Firth's Lomax is taken captive during World War II and sent to a POW camp by the Japanese, where he is forced to work on the Thai-Burma Railway and suffers almost unspeakable atrocities.

"What happened was so brutal that you can't tell adventure stories about that stuff," says Firth. "Once you understand what individuals did for each other, it's probably more heroic than you can imagine." He spent time with Lomax, an experience he says was critical to developing the role.

"You do what you can. Our tools are very limited. You're employed to represent experiences that are beyond your understanding. I've never been through anything approaching that. My courage has never had to be summoned for anything like that. I can only offer my imagination."


READ MORE HERE: http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/2776525

Nicole Kidman & Colin Firth: 'Railway Man' TIFF Premiere! (video)

 

 JUST JARED

September 6, 2013

Nicole Kidman suits up for the premiere of her new film The Railway Man held during the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival on Friday evening (September 6) at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, Canada.

The 46-year-old actress was joined by her co-stars Jeremy Irvine and Colin Firth, whose wife Livia Giuggioli was by his side at the premiere.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.justjared.com/photo-gallery/2945368/nicole-kidman-colin-firth-railway-man-tiff-premiere-17/

Toronto Film Festival 2013: Colin Firth stars in The Railway Man

THE TELEGRAPH
By Dalya Alberge1:30PM BST 06 Sep 2013

As a British prisoner of war, Eric Lomax endured unspeakable torture and terror at the hands of his Japanese captors. Forced to stand for hours in the burning sun, he was half-drowned by a water-hose placed in his nose and mouth, his arms were broken and his ribs cracked in savage beatings, and he was made to sleep in a cage covered in excrement. That was his punishment for being caught with a radio that he helped to build. Two fellow prisoners similarly accused did not survive the beatings.

Almost a year after his death aged 93, the harrowing but inspirational story of atrocities that he and thousands of British servicemen suffered in captivity and on the notorious Thai/Burma “Death Railway” is now told in a major British film. The Railway Man receives its world premiere this weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, attended by his widow, Patti, and its Oscar-winning stars, Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman. But its producer and co-writer, Andy Paterson, doubts that Lomax would have joined them had he been alive. He believes that, after a lifetime of nightmares and flashbacks, Lomax would have found the film’s portrayal too realistic. The horrors remained raw – even after facing his demons, both psychological and real, in confronting, then forgiving Takashi Nagase, the interpreter who presided over his torture.



After the war, like many POWs, he was unable to talk about his experiences. But he realised that future generations needed to be told and, in 1995, he published his powerful memoir – The Railway Man – a bestseller that reminded the world of the sacrifices of the “forgotten army”.

Paterson observes: “He was able to make sense of it – not just for himself, but so others might comprehend it … But we still occasionally glimpsed what Patti called ‘the shutters coming down’. If you [probed] … too deep, you’d encounter the silence.” At his home, Paterson and Firth noted the absence of a radio. Paterson recalls. “He looked at us and said ‘I think I’m allergic to radios’.”

They worked extremely closely “to understand what he went through … very different from writing down events,” Paterson adds. They wanted the script “right” and “there was a moment when he said, ‘this is what it felt like’. Then we knew the script was right.”

Like other veterans, Lomax was critical of David Lean’s fictionalised film, The Bridge on the River Kwai. He criticised the well-fed POWs. The Railway Man went out of its way to find thin extras, and Jeremy Irvine, who made his name in Steven Spielberg’s War Horse, lost two stone to play a young Lomax. Firth portrays the older man.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/10288754/Toronto-Film-Festival-2013-Colin-Firth-stars-in-The-Railway-Man.html

New Look at Colin Firth in TIFF Bound 'The Railway Man'

A tale of survival, love and redemption

ROPE OF SILICON

BRAD BREVET 

PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, JULY 24TH 2013 AT 8:30 AM

I still have a lot of new pictures to preview from the films that will be premiering at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival and I'm hoping to get to a lot of them today and first up is The Railway Man from director Jonathan Teplitzky (Burning Man) and starring Colin Firth, Jeremy Irvine (War Horse), Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgård and Hiroyuki Sanada. And just above is a new look at Firth in the film which was shot by Garry Phillips.

The film is without a domestic distributor so its premiere in Toronto is going to be an important one.

READ MORE HERE: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/new-look-at-colin-firth-in-tiff-bound-the-railway-man/

Alec Guinness personal letters and diaries acquired by British Library Archive of theatre knight, famed for Ealing comedies, reveal Pooterish moments and brickbats for Sir Laurence (THE GUARDIAN)

Maev Kennedy
The Guardian,

Alec Guinness as Colonel Nicholson in the 1957 film The Bridge on the River Kwai. Photograph: Allstar/COLUMBIA/Sportsphoto

On July 12 1989, one of the greatest actors of his generation was reflecting in his diary on the death of another. If Sir Alec Guinness's thoughts/words of praise for Sir Laurence Olivier were extracted, as theatre promoters routinely do with critics' write-ups, it could read as a rave review.

The full text, revealed for the first time in the actor's personal archive just acquired by the British Library, tells a different story. In his impeccably neat tiny script, Guinness wrote of Olivier: "I greatly admired his extraordinary courage … as a comedian he was superb … technically brilliant … he was a great actor."

But he also wrote: "Like so many people whose ambition drive them to great eminence, he had a cruel and destructive streak. Side by side with his generosity, he could be unpleasant, possibly even vindictive. Consciously or not, he made attempts to destroy John G [Gielgud], [Michael] Redgrave, [Paul] Scofield and if he had been given the chance, me."

The theatre knights meet again in the library. The vaults also hold the archives of Olivier, Gielgud, and an actor of whom Guinness writes with uncomplicated affection, Ralph Richardson.

Olivier and Guinness were near contemporaries, born respectively in 1907 and 1914, and met constantly on stage and elsewhere over more than half a century.

Guinness said: "There was a touch of pretension about him, and his public speeches were fulsome and awful. I first met him in 1935, in Romeo and Juliet. We all thought he looked and behaved like the leader of a dance band. But his Romeo was as arresting and beautiful as his Mercutio was vulgar and gimmicky."

That production was famous for the fact that Olivier and Gielgud opened as Romeo and Mercutio respectively, and then swapped roles.

Guinness conceded: "Many of us were … too admiring of John to value Larry's qualities fairly." However, he then added a snide line recalling: "The sniggers that went round when he said, during a rehearsal I think, of the procession at George V's jubilee … 'I had a wonderful view of the whole corsage'."

Guinness was unforgettable in a string of classic Ealing comedies, including Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played eight different characters, and for his long collaboration with the director David Lean, including with the film The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957, for which he won an Oscar.

He was also acclaimed as John le Carre's spy George Smiley, in the television adaptation of the novels. However to fans of a certain age his true stardom came in the 1970s, as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy.


READ MORE:http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/07/alec-guinness-letters-british-library

Colin Firth:Town’s teenage film fans track down The Railway Man (SCOTSMAN.COM)

Published on Saturday 19 May 2012 02:21

HOLLYWOOD A-listers Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman have posed for pictures with fans while filming in North Berwick.

The stars were in the East Lothian town to shoot scenes for their The Railway Man, based on Eric Lomax’s book about his experiences during the Second World War, when he was a Japanese prisoner of war, and his reconciliation with one of his captors afterwards. .

Scenes were shot in a house in Tantallon Terrace and on the nearby beach yesterday.

Sylvia Beaumont, who was among those star-spotting, photographed Kidman and Firth chatting with local children.

She said: “I was down walking my dogs and just stopped because I’ve always got my little camera in my pocket. I spoke to both of them and asked if I could take their pictures. They both said: ‘Of course’.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/film/town-s-teenage-film-fans-track-down-the-railway-man-1-2305271

Colin Firth is seen beside Forth at North Berwick (EAST LOTHIAN NEWS)

Published on Thursday 17 May 2012 18:00

Hollywood actor Colin Firth was near the Firth of Forth this week to film his new movie.

He was shooting scenes for The Railway Man, in which he stars with Nicole Kidman, at a house in Tantallon Terrace on the seafront at North Berwick.

Mr Firth, famed for his roles in blockbusters such as The King’s Speech and Pride and Prejudice, plays Edinburgh-born prisoner-of-war Eric Lomax and Ms Kidman, his wife Patti.


READ MORE:  http://www.eastlothiannews.co.uk/news/local-headlines/firth-is-seen-beside-forth-at-north-berwick-1-2297989

Colin Firth: The Railway Man Set

Colin Firth was looking his usual delicious self on the Scotland set of The Railway Man today (May 14th), a film that follows a victim of World War II’s “Death Railway” as he tracks down those responsible for his torture.  Stellan Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman and Jeremy Irvine also star in the Jonathan Teplitzky-directed flick, based on a true story.

READ MORE:  http://socialitelife.com/love-actually-to-get-a-sequel-photos-05-2012

Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth filming in Berwick and Holy Island (THE BERWICK ADVERTISER)

Published on Saturday 12 May 2012 21:17

Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth brought Hollywood to Berwick, posing for pictures with fans and signing autographs as they spent the day in town filming their forthcoming blockbuster. Local residents were cast as extras in scenes shot on the town walls and on the New Road under the Royal Border Bridge.

The Australian and Englishman are in the area to shoot part of the The Railway Man in Berwick-upon-Tweed and Holy Island.

The film adaptation of the best-selling book written by Berwick’s former prisoner of war Eric Lomax, has a budget of around £12 million and is due for release in 2013.

It tells the story of Lomax, now 92, who survived the Burma “death railway” after being tortured by his Japanese captors. Years later, he set out to find those responsible for his torture, travelling back to the bridge over the River Kwai. The mission was set up by wife Patti, whom he met on a train, with the help of a wartime colleague.

Firth is playing Lomax, and Kidman is playing the part of his wife, Patti. The stars were planning to meet Eric and Patti in Berwick.


Production bosses have been keen to keep details of filming times and locations a closely guarded secret, however it is understood the cast and crew were moving on to Bamburgh on Saturday, May 12. Filming began on April 30 and scenes are also being shot over a ten-week period in Edinburgh, Fife, Perth and East Lothian before the Hollywood production moves on to Thailand and Australia.

News of the filming on Holy Island and Berwick brought a buzz to both locations as camera crews, engineers, producers and actors occupied local hotels and inns.

Firth, Kidman and her children spent Thursday night at Tillmouth Park Hotel, near Cornhill. They are understood to have visited the Barn at Beal on Thursday after attempts to shoot scenes at Holy Island earlier that day had proved difficult due to rain.

Elaine Lang, whose runs the front office at Tillmouth Park Hotel, said: “They had booked months in advance. Colin Firth had spoken to a friend who is a regular guest with us and he had said it was the ‘best hotel on the planet’. How good is that? Nicole Kidman had her children with her and they had the best rooms, of course.”


Members of the production crew stayed at various locations, including Marshall Meadows and the granary youth hostel in Berwick. Others stayed on Holy Island.

Filming took place on Holy Island again first thing the next morning before the shoot moved on to Berwick. Heavy rain and low temperatures on Holy Island on Friday morning didn’t help. Janice Hnat from The Ship Inn said: “We had three cameramen staying and they got up at 4.30am for a sunrise picture. But all they had was clouds and rain – and they came back with no sunrise!”

Lindisfarne Hotel manager Sean Atkinson added: “They were all wrapped up like Nanook of the North – raincoats, hoods up, umbrellas, the lot. “They couldn’t have picked a worse day to come here, but the filming still went ahead.”

Firth and Kidman spent about an hour on the causeway while a handful of curious onlookers watched in very wet conditions.


READ MORE:  http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/news/local-headlines/nicole-kidman-and-colin-firth-filming-in-berwick-and-holy-island-1-2287024

Colin Firth: Kidman and Firth film in Northumberland - last updated Thu 10 May 2012 (ITV NEWS)

Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth Photo: ITV


Hollywood stars Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman were in Lindisfarne, Northumberland today filming their latest Blockbuster, The Railway Man.

The film is about Berwick's Eric Lomax who survived a prisoner-of war-camp. He still lives near Holy Island and Firth plays him, while Kidman plays his wife Patti. But today, they weren't having much luck because of the weather.

TO SEE A SHORT NEWS VIDEO OF THE HORRIBLE DAY THEY HAD FILMING IN THE RAIN CLICK HERE.