Colin Firth by Maloney Alison

Author:Maloney, Alison [Maloney, Alison]
Format: epub
Publisher: MichaeloMara
Published: 2011-11-05T22:49:15+00:00

Chapter 11

Stage Fright

SETTLED INTO HIS new Islington home, Colin began 1999 with his first theatre project for six years. Three Days of Rain, an American drama which centres on a classic love triangle, was to run for a short period at the Donmar, with David Morrissey and Elizabeth McGovern. Kicking off in March for two weeks only, it was set to return for another ten-week run from November. Crucially, it didn’t interfere with the long summer holiday that Colin liked to spend with Will, now eight.

‘I can’t do long runs, because my son is in LA and I’m committed to regular visits,’ he said. ‘Besides I could hardly run my commuting lifestyle on a regular Donmar salary.’

The first act of the Richard Greenberg play centres around Walker and Nan, a grieving brother and sister, and their childhood friend Pip, the son of their late father’s business partner, who is having a relationship with Nan. For the second half the three actors switch to playing the characters’ parents and reveal the power struggle and secrets of the past.

Colin welcomed a return to ‘the thrilling unpredictability of the rehearsal rooms’ and David Morrissey was fascinated by his talented co-star. ‘I used to watch him from the wings all the time,’ he said later. ‘What he has is an innate goodness about him. He tends to play conflicted people but at their heart they are always good men and that is what I think draws us to him. We feel safe with him and also he has this great comedy, he has great comic timing. I think any actor, even if they are in heavy drama, they need good timing and that’s one of the things he’s always had.

‘He’s never been typecast in my opinion. There’s nothing he can’t do really. He’s got a great sensitivity about him.’

In fact, Colin was feeling conflicted himself. While welcoming the chance to tread the boards again, he was hiding an inner terror which he had never experienced before. It came to a head one terrible night when he was struck down with a crippling stage fright.

‘I locked myself in the toilet about fifteen minutes before the curtain went up and could not even think of the first line,’ he recalled. ‘I then went out of one of the fire doors for air and locked myself out of the theatre. It was a car crash moment!’

If Colin was quaking inside, it didn’t show in his performance. The critics raved about the play.

‘Firth is superb as both the screwed-up, bullying Walker, brilliantly suggesting the egomania of unhappiness, and as Walker’s humble, painfully stammering father, a performance that goes straight to the viewer’s heart,’ wrote Telegraph scribe Charles Spencer.

‘The force of Colin Firth’s remarkable acting transcends the mere erotic appeal that on television made him the fantasy play-thing of so many women. He portrays two men who loiter on the fringes of life, brooding over how to find the key to happiness. Firth’s valiantly worn dejection always rings true,’ said the Evening Standard’s Nicholas de Jongh.

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