Comedy – particularly the frothy and frivolous – is notoriously neglected by festivals and awards. But it’s bloody hard to get right.
I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.
When I look in the mirror, I don’t see my Dad, I see my grandmother. For a while it was my mother looking back at me. If only it was my Dad.
My singing voice is somewhere between a drunken apology and a plumbing problem.
When I’m really into a novel, I’m seeing the world differently during that time – not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I’m actually walking around in a haze, spellbound by the book and looking at everything through a different prism.
Sometimes to think about why some institutions are stable, it’s interesting to go one generation back and look at the author of that stability.
The skill of a good actor is to make it always seem like you’re in that fantastically spontaneous moment. Very often, a stand-up comedian has a different instinct, which is to reinvent. Once you’ve laid down some material, and made them laugh, you move on and find some new material.
I think the dictator director is based upon stories from the past. I don’t think anyone would put up with it now. There are a lot of people on a film set with egos. So, to be completely authoritarian, you’d probably have to have a reputation like Kurosowa or somebody to get away with it.
Forget trying to be sexy. That’s just gruesome.
To work effectively in a film, you have to repeat and work consistently. Basically, you shoot a big master then you do close-ups. You’re supposed to be in the same moment, the same 30-second moment, for a day.
I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that’s when you come over all humbug. It’s happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you...
So, I think there’s a danger that good stuff can fall by the wayside if it doesn’t conform to formula. But I think it comes down to money and they just don’t know where it’s going if they haven’t got any precedent.
Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he’s doing very little wrong.
My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It’s thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that’s not me. Often with actors, it’s a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where’s the substance?
I think England has served me very well. I like living in London for the reasons I gave. I have absolutely no intentions of cutting those ties. There is absolutely no reason to do so. Certainly not, so that I can have a swimming pool and a palm tree.
The Hollywood Foreign Press have just given me a time out from my 20-year midlife crisis. My heartfelt thanks to them.
I think that London is very much like that. I find there’s humour in the air and people are interesting. And I think that it’s a place which is constantly surprising. The worst thing about it? I think it can be smug and aggressive.
Firth – all dodgy ‘tache and frantic eyebrows – has got the sexual allure of a man who runs a swingers’ club in Surbiton.
I’d love to try my hand at something else.
Most actors will tell you they have some sort of dream of doing something other than what they’re doing.