The scene in which Pride And Prejudice star Colin Firth emerges from the lake as Mr Darcy with a wet shirt clinging seductively to his body has gone down in showbiz history for making the actor an overnight sex symbol. It was not an effect which those closest to the actor had envisaged, however.
Colin has revealed that female friends were horrified to learn he had landed the role, saying he would "ruin" the handsome character for them. Confessing that many found his casting "hysterical", he admits: "I don't look like a heart-throb to most people I know, to be honest."
"At the time none of the girls I know wanted me to play Mr Darcy. They said: 'You'll ruin it forever, Colin. Mr Darcy is supposed to be sexy'," he told W magazine.
Few could have envisaged that his stint as the Jane Austen hero would set thousands of female hearts aflutter across Britain and the US, sending him rocketing onto People magazine's list of the world's 50 most beautiful people.
Women elsewhere in the world were not as favourably impressed, however. Watching a breeches-clad Colin emerge from the lake a friend of the actor's Italian wife, Livia Guiggioli, declared incredulously: "Do the English find this sexy? Do they also find John Major sexy?".
Photo: © Alphapress.com
