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Colin Firth's 50 things.
1. Colin Andrew Firth is an English actor.
2. His films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide.
3. Colin Firth has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, two BAFTAs and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup.
4. His 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 the Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards.
5. His 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 the Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards.
6. This led to roles in films such as The English Patient, Bridget Jones's Diary (for which he was nominated for a BAFTA), Shakespeare in Love and Love Actually.
7. In 2009 he 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.
8. In 2011, Firth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was also selected as one of the Time 100.
9. 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.
10. Colin Firth has campaigned for the rights of indigenous tribal peoples and is a member of Survival International.
11. Colin Firth has also campaigned on issues of asylum seekers and refugees' rights and the environment.
12. Colin Firth 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.
13. Colin Firth was born in Grayshott, Hampshire, to parents who were both academics and teachers.
14. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College, Winchester (now the University of Winchester).
15. His father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer (also at King Alfred's) and education officer for the Nigerian Government.
16. Colin Firth is the eldest of three children with a sister, Kate, a stage actress and voice coach, and a brother, Jonathan, who is also an actor.
17. Firth's parents were brought up in India, because his maternal grandparents, Congregationalist ministers, and his paternal grandfather, an Anglican priest, performed overseas missionary work.
18. As a child, Firth travelled a lot due to his parents' work, spending some years in Nigeria.
19. Colin Firth also lived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 11, which he has described as "a difficult time".
20. On returning to the UK he attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School), which at the time was a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire.
21. Colin Firth was still an outsider and was the target of bullying. To counter this he adopted the local working class Hampshire accent, and affected a lack of interest in schoolwork.
22. By the time he was fourteen, Firth had already decided he wanted to be a professional actor, having attended drama workshops from the age of ten.
23. 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."
24. However, at Barton Peveril Sixth form college in Eastleigh he became instilled with a love of English literature thanks to an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards, and has said that "My two years at Barton Peveril were among the two happiest years of my life".
25. 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.
26. Colin Firth went on to study at Drama Centre London.
27. Playing Hamlet in the Drama Centre end of year production, Firth was spotted by playwright Julian Mitchell, who cast him as the gay, ambitious public schoolboy Guy Bennett in the 1983 West End production of Another Country.
28. In 1984, Firth made his film debut in the role of Tommy Judd, Guy Bennett's straight, Marxist school friend in the screen adaptation of the play (opposite Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett).
29. Colin Firth starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires (1986), a TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's novel.
30. In 1987, Firth along with other up and coming British actors such as Tim Roth, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'.
31. Colin Firth appeared alongside Kenneth Branagh in the film version of J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country.
32. He portrayed real-life British soldier Robert Lawrence MC in the 1988 BBC dramatisation Tumbledown. Lawrence was severely injured at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the Falklands War, and the film details his struggles to adjust to his disability whilst confronted with indifference from the government and the public. The film attracted controversy at the time, with criticism coming from left and right ends of the political spectrum.
33. Firth's performance led to a Royal TV Society Best Actor Award and he was nominated for the 1989 BAFTA Television Award.
34. In 1989 he played the title role in Miloš Forman's Valmont, based on Les Liaisons dangereuses. This was released just a year after Dangerous Liaisons, and did not make a big impact in comparison.
35. It was through his role as the aloof and haughty aristocrat Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice that Firth finally became a household name.
36. Colin Firth was producer Sue Birtwistle's first choice for the part, eventually being persuaded to take it, despite initial reluctance as he was unfamiliar with Austen's writing.
37. Colin Firth and co-star Jennifer Ehle began a romantic relationship during the filming of the series, which only received media attention after the couple's separation.
38. Although Firth did not mind being recognized as "a romantic idol as a Darcy with smouldering sex appeal" in a role that "officially turned him into a heart-throb", he expressed the wish not to be associated with Pride and Prejudice forever.
39. Colin Firth was therefore reluctant to accept similar roles and risk becoming typecast.
40. For a time it did seem as if Mr Darcy would overshadow the rest of his career, and there were humorous allusions to the role in his next five movies.
41. The most notable of these was the casting of Firth as love interest Mark Darcy in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, itself a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice.
42. Colin Firth accepted the part as he saw it as an opportunity to lampoon his Mr Darcy character.
43. In 1989, he began a relationship with Meg Tilly, his co-star in Valmont and, in 1990, they had a son, William "Will" Joseph Firth. The family moved to the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Firth's acting career slowed down until they broke up in 1994, and his return to the UK.
44. In 1997, Firth married Italian film producer and director Livia Firth.
45. They have two sons, Luca (born March 2001) and Matteo (born August 2003).
46. The family now live in both Chiswick, London and Umbria, Italy.
47. He started to learn Italian when he and Giuggioli began to date and is now fluent in the language.
48. Colin Firth is a supporter of Arsenal F.C.
49. Colin Firth was awarded an honorary degree on 19 October 2007 from the University of Winchester.
50. On 13 January 2011, he was presented with the 2,429th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Source: Wikipedia.org
