COLIN FIRTH: ENGLISH SMARTNESS AND DISTINCTION

Colin Andrew Firth

Colin Andrew Firth, born 10 September 1960, is an English actor. He has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, two BAFTA Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup. 

Firth's most notable and acclaimed role to date has been his 2010 portrayal of King George VI in The King's Speech, a performance that earned him an Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards.

Firth was born in the village of Grayshott, Hampshire, to parents who were both academics and teachers.

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As a child, Firth travelled a lot due to his parents' work, spending some years in Nigeria. He also lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11, which he has described as a difficult time. 

Colin Firth in Pride and Prejudice

On returning to England, he attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School, which at the time was a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire. He was still an outsider and was the target of bullying. To counter this, he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent and copied his schoolmates' lack of interest in schoolwork.

By the time he was 14, Firth had already decided to be a professional actor, having attended drama workshops from the age of 10. Until further education, he was not academically inclined, later saying in an interview, I didn't like school. I just thought it was boring and mediocre and nothing they taught me seemed to be of any interest at all. 

However, at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, he was imbued with a love of English literature by an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards, and has said that his two years at Barton Peveril were among the two happiest years of my life.

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After his sixth form years, Firth moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre. There, he made many contacts in the acting world, from which he got a job in the wardrobe department at the National Theatre. From there, he went on to study at Drama Centre London.

Colin Firth winning an Oscar

Identified in the late 1980s with the Brit Pack of rising, young British actors, it was not until Firth's portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that he received more widespread attention. This led to roles in films such as The English Patient, Bridget Jones's Diary, Shakespeare in Love, and Love Actually. 

In 2009, Firth received widespread critical acclaim for his leading role in A Single Man, for which Firth gained his first Academy Award nomination, and won a BAFTA Award. Firth starred in the action spy movie Kingsman: The Secret Service in 2014, which was a commercial success and received generally positive reviews.

In 2011, Firth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was also selected as one of the Time 100. He was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Winchester in 2007, and was made a Freeman of the City of London in 2012. 

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He has campaigned for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples, and is a member of Survival International. Firth has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers, refugees' rights, and the environment. He commissioned and is credited as a co-author on a scientific paper on a study into the differences in brain structure between people of differing political orientations.

I feel more comfortable in drama. Comedy is a high-wire act. 

I find it stressful. It's a precision science in a way. 

Colin Firth