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."
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
