Background

Ethnicity: Colin Firth is mostly of English, with some Scottish and Ulster-Scots/Northern Irish roots.

Colin Firth was born on September 10, 1960, in Grayshott, England, the United Kingdom to parents Shirley Jean and David Norman Firth. Colin spent his early days in Nigeria, where his parents were working. His mother was a lecturer in Religious Studies, and his father was a history lecturer as well as an education officer for the Nigerian Government. Both of his parents were raised in India as both sets of grandparents were missionaries there.

The family moved back to England but relocated to America before Colin was a teenager. His childhood proved taxing as he never quite fitted in, even when the Firth brood once again crossed the Atlantic and settled in England.

His siblings Katie Firth and Jonathan Firth are also actors.

Education

Colin Firth attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School on his return to the United Kingdom where he found it hard to fit in. His classmates constantly bullied him because of which he lost his interest in studies.

He loved acting from a young age and started attending drama classes when he was ten. He decided to become a professional actor when he was 14.

He spent two years at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College where he developed a love for English literature. However, he did not stay in the college for long and joined the National Youth Theatre in London.

Career

While playing Hamlet in a school production during his final term, the actor was "discovered," and he went on to make his London stage debut in the West End production of Another Country. In 1984 Firth starred in the film adaptation, though he was cast in a different role. TV and stage roles, including a high-profile part in The Secret Garden, followed, as did critical accolades and unending devotion from legions of female fans. But to their dismay, Colin fell for American actress Meg Tilly and was off the market.

Over the next decade, Firth worked steadily, appearing in numerous stage, movie, and television productions. In 1988 he received critical praise for the TV film Tumbledown, in which he portrayed a Scottish soldier who is injured during the Falkland Islands War and endures a difficult recovery. The role earned Firth his first British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Award nomination.

Despite such an auspicious beginning to his career, Colin spent the rest of the decade and half of the next working in relative obscurity. He starred in a number of television productions - including the highly acclaimed 1993 Hostages - and worked steadily in film. Notable feature films from this period included Apartment Zero (1988), Valmont (1989), and Circle of Friends (1995).

His breakthrough role happened in 1995. He was selected to play the haughty aristocrat, Mr. Darcy, in a television adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice which finally got him the fame he deserved. This role catapulted him to the status of a sex symbol. Colin caused many a viewer to wonder where he had been for so long and suddenly he was propelled into the media spotlight. For his role, he also received the Royal Television Society Best Actor award and a BAFTA nomination.

That same year, he appeared as an amorous cad in the similarly popular Circle of Friends (1995) and went on the next year to appear as Kristin Scott Thomas' cuckolded husband in The English Patient (1996). After a comically sinister turn as Gwyneth Paltrow's intended husband in the 1998 Shakespeare in Love, Colin went on to star in two very different movies: My Life So Far, a tale of family dysfunction in the Scottish Highlands, and Fever Pitch.

He was afraid of being typecast as an aloof sex symbol due to the popularity he received by portraying Mr. Darcy and wanted to choose different types of roles. However, it was a fate he could not escape and was again cast as a brooding and cold hunk in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones’s Diary in 2001. Firth reprised the role in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016).

Firth continued to display his versatility in such films as Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), in which he starred as the 17th-century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer; the family film Nanny McPhee (2005); and the box-office hit Mamma Mia! (2008), a musical based on the songs of ABBA.

The year 2009 was a remarkable one for him. In Tom Ford’s directorial debut, an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel A Single Man, Firth played a gay professor who has been depressed since the death of his lover eight years ago. The role earned Firth his first Oscar nomination, and he won his first BAFTA Award.

He received even more critical acclaim for his work in The King's Speech, starring as Prince Albert (eventually King George VI) of Great Britain, who enlists the aid of an eccentric speech therapist (played by Geoffrey Rush) to overcome a debilitating stutter, winning a Golden Globe, a BAFTA Award and an Academy Award.

After playing a slick Texas businessman in the small-town drama Main Street (2010), Firth took the role of a British intelligence agent suspected of treason in the 2011 film adaptation of John le Carré’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. In the dark comedy Arthur Newman (2012), he starred as a discontented family man who fakes his death and embarks on a journey under an assumed identity. He played a former World War II prisoner of war who goes in search of the Japanese interpreter who tortured him in The Railway Man (2013), based on a memoir. Firth then evinced the husband of a woman (played by Nicole Kidman) who loses her memory in the thriller Before I Go to Sleep (2014). He deployed his starchy diction and composure to comic effect as a spy in the thriller parody Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and the franchise’s second installment, Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017).

Colin was also seen in the Oscar Wilde biographical drama The Happy Prince (2018), in which he played alongside Rupert Everett as Wilde's dear friend, Reggie Turner. He then appeared in the children's film, Mary Poppins Returns(2018), in the role of banker William Weatherall Wilkins. In 2018 Firth also reprised his role as Harry in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Firth then appeared in the World War I drama 1917, which was directed by Sam Mendes.

Achievements

• 

  Firth's films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide. He has received an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Awards, two British Academy Film Awards and three Screen Actors Guild Awards, as well as the Volpi Cup. 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 an Oscar and multiple worldwide best actor awards.
  
  In 2011, Firth received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was also selected as one of the Time 100. He was also awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.
  
  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.
  
  

Works

More photos

• movie

  • Relative Values

    (When a star (William Baldwin) and Hollywood Diva Miranda ...)

    2000
  • Camille

    (One of the world’s most famous love stories comes to vibr...)

    1984
  • The Mercy

    (Following his Academy Award-nominated film The Theory of ...)

    2018
  • Then She Found Me

    (A New York schoolteacher hits a midlife crisis when, in q...)

    2007
  • A Month in the Country

    (Colin Firth (Mamma Mia, Bridget Jones's Diary) and Kennet...)

  • Stars in Shorts

    (ShortsHD presents Stars in Shorts, an incredible collecti...)

    2012
  • Valmont

    (In this version of the 18th-century French novel 'Les Lia...)

    1989
  • When Did You Last See Your Father?

    (Based on the award-winning novel, When Did You Last See Y...)

    2007
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

    (Tomas Alfredson directs this adaptation of John Le Carre'...)

    2011
  • Magic In The Moonlight

    (A magician schooled in unmasking fake spiritualists encou...)

    2014
  • Dorian Gray

    (Upon arriving in London, Dorian Gray (Ben Barnes), immedi...)

    2009
  • The Importance of Being Earnest

    (Starring Reese Witherspoon, Colin Firth, and Rupert Evere...)

    2002
  • The Railway Man

    (Colin Firth stars as a former army officer who sets out o...)

    2014
  • Girl with a Pearl Earring

    (Nominated for three Academy Awards, Girl With a Pearl Ear...)

    2003
  • Love Actually

    (From the makers of Bridget Jones's Diary and Notting Hill...)

    2003
  • Easy Virtue

    (Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ben ...)

    2008
  • Before I Go To Sleep

    (Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth deliver riveting performanc...)

    2014
  • Eye in the Sky

    (An operation to capture terrorists in Kenya is complicate...)

    2015
  • Kingsman: The Golden Circle

    (In this action-filled installment of the Kingsman series,...)

    2017
  • Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

    (Reunite with witty heroine, Bridget Jones, as she discove...)

    2004
  • Arthur Newman

    (A story of a man who fakes his own death and assumes a ne...)

    2013
  • Where The Truth Lies

    (A female journalist tries to uncover the truth behind the...)

    2005
  • Mamma Mia!

    (Have the time of your life with Meryl Streep and an all-s...)

    2008
  • What a Girl Wants

    (Daphne (Amanda Bynes), a spirited young American girl, tr...)

    2003
  • A Christmas Carol

    (When three ghosts take penny-pinching Scrooge on an eye-o...)

    2009
  • Bridget Jones's Baby

    (Oscar winners Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth are joined ...)

    2016
  • Secret Laughter of Women

    (Nimi, a beautiful Nigerian single mother to son Sammy, is...)

    1999
  • Genova

    (The Italian town of Genova provides a fresh start for Joe...)

    2008
  • Mary Poppins Returns

    (The magic returns in Disney’s reimagined classics as Mary...)

    2018
  • Gambit

    (The story revolves around a British thief who comes up wi...)

    2012
  • Genius

    (Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth star in this stirring drama...)

    2016
  • The Accidental Husband

    (When a talk radio host (Uma Thurman, "Pulp Fiction") advi...)

    2008
  • Conspiracy

    (Kenneth Branagh and Stanley Tucci star in this story of t...)

    2001
  • Loving

    (A couple in 1958 take their fight against Virginia's ban ...)

    2016
  • Shakespeare In Love

    (A young Shakespeare, out of ideas and short of cash, meet...)

    1998
  • Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again

    (Sophie attempts to reopen her late mother's Greek isle ta...)

    2018
  • Bridget Jones's Diary

    (A British woman is determined to improve herself while sh...)

    2001
  • The Happy Prince

    (His body ailing, Oscar Wilde lives in exile, surviving on...)

    2018
  • Another Country

    (Based on the life of the young Guy Burgess, who would bec...)

    1984
  • Hope Springs

    (An artist seeks refuge in a Vermont hotel after being dum...)

    2003
  • Main Street

    (Oscar-winner Colin Firth & Orlando Bloom star in a drama ...)

    2010
  • The Last Legion

    (The Last Legion reveals the fall of Rome and the birth of...)

    2007
  • Fever Pitch

    (A sports fan's romantic courtship clashes with his obsess...)

    1997
  • Nanny McPhee

    (A governess uses magic to rein in the behavior of seven c...)

    2005
  • The Secret Garden

    (Mary Lennox (Gennie James) is a spoiled young British gir...)

    1987
  • The King's Speech

    (The King's Speech is based on the true story of King Geor...)

    2010
  • The English Patient

    (At the close of WWII, a young nurse tends to a badly-burn...)

    1996
  • Apartment Zero

    (Adrian LeDuc (Firth) is the British owner of a revival ho...)

    1989
  • A Single Man

    (A Single Man is based on the novel of the same name by Ch...)

    2009
  • Trauma

    (After recovering from a coma, Ben is haunted by visions o...)

    2004
  • Devil's Knot

    (Three young boys playing in the nearby woods never come h...)

    2014
  • 1917

    (Director Sam Mendes brings his singular vision to this Wo...)

    2019
  • St. Trinian's

    (St Trinian's, the infamous school for 'young ladies, ' is...)

    2007
  • My Life So Far

    (Young Fraser Pettigrew has always been an adventurous chi...)

    1999
  • Kingsman: The Secret Service

    (A phenomenal cast, including Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jacks...)

    2014
  • Born Equal

    (Contains strong language. This BBC One drama from BAFTA w...)

    2006

• TV series

  • Lost Empires

    (Lost Empires is a 1986 television miniseries adaptation o...)

    1986

Religion

Firth comes from a religious lineage. He said in an interview that he had a very religious upbringing. Both of his parents were born in India of Christian missionaries - his maternal grandparents as Congregationalist ministers and his paternal grandfather as an Anglican minister. His mother was a lecturer in comparative religion, and Firth described her as pantheistic with lots of interest in mysticism.

Politics

Firth is incredibly involved and opinionated about politics both at home and abroad. As far as British politics are concerned, Firth has had trouble finding a party to support his liberal worldview. First, he was with Labour but threw his support behind the Liberal Democrats in 2010 claiming Labour had abandoned their values.

But then after the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition with Conservatives that year, and reneged on their promise to cap tuition hikes, Firth withdrew his support from that party as well, saying he was unaffiliated.

Firth appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing members of parliament to the House of Commons in the unsuccessful Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.

Views

When not working, Firth is involved with several refugee rights and social justice organizations. He supports several charities and non-governmental organizations. He has been involved since long with Survival International, an NGO that supports the rights of tribal people, particularly the Bushmen in Botswana. He also supports Refugee Council.

When pushed for an opinion on the British royal family during a CNN interview, Firth stated that he believed people should choose their rulers. While he thought that the royals “seem nice” and praised Prince Charles for his environmental activism, “unelected bodies” are definitely problematic.

Colin Firth made a statement in the middle of the stories that shook Hollywood a few months ago, regarding sexual harassment by certain celebrities. Although he collaborated with Woody Allen on Magic In The Moonlight, Firth offered support to all victims, actresses and unknown women who publicly accused the producer of sexual abuse and harassment. Firth became another actor that gave a public statement announcing that he won't work with Woody Allen anymore. Before Firth went public with his declaration, other actors said the same thing. Natalie Portman, Mira Sorvino, and many other actors who worked with Allen said they would do so, no more. Firth made a similar case concerning Director Harvey Weinstein, whose company produced Firth's The King's Speech.

Quotations: "I feel quite strongly about anti-Americanism. I share people's grievances about the current Administration but I remember my father and I watching the Watergate hearings. Here was a country arraigning its own leaders. America has a fantastic history of dissent."

"Actors are basically drag queens. People will tell you they act because they want to heal mankind or, you know, explore the nature of the human psyche. Yes, maybe. But basically we just want to put on a frock and dance."

"I like playing strange characters. Some people might say it has something to do with a hidden part of myself, but I think it's a lot simpler than that: normal people are just not very interesting."

Personality

When Firth started attending a school near his home in Hampshire, England, he adopted the rough accent of his classmates and pretended to dislike school in order to avoid being bullied.

Firth has admitted that he still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do when he grows up. In his mind, acting isn’t a job for grownups, and he’s not sure that he would still make the choice to do it if he’d started later in life. Meanwhile, he does think that age has made acting more interesting and says it’s “given everything a new lease on life.”

Firth’s BAFTA acceptance speech for A Single Man included an unusual thank you. Firth gave a shout out to his refrigerator repairman, who was inadvertently responsible for him taking the role. Firth says that he was in the midst of sending an e-mail to director Tom Ford turning down the part when the repairman arrived. The disruption gave him time to reconsider, and it became one of his more memorable roles.

One of Firth’s favorite hobbies is playing his guitar, but his love for his guitar goes way beyond that. He loves guitars and confesses that he takes great comfort in “cuddling” them. He also admits that he loves them so much that he “fetishizes” them and playing is just an excuse to hold one. He even played for real while singing the song “Our Last Summer” in Mamma Mia!

Interests

• playing the guitar

• Politicians

  Nick Clegg

• Writers

  The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke, The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene, Preston Falls by David Gates, Saint Maybe
  
  by Anne Tyler, Light in August
  
  by William Faulkner, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

• Artists

  Jan Vermeer

• Sport & Clubs

  swimming, running, soccer, Arsenal FC

• Music & Bands

  T Rex - Ride a white swan, Miles Davis - chez le photographe du motel, Abel Korzeniowski - And Just like that, Massive Attack - Paradise Circus, The White Stripes - Rag & Bone

Connections

In 1989, Firth began a relationship with Meg Tilly, his co-star in Valmont and, in 1990, they had a son, William “Will” Joseph Firth. Firth remains in contact with Will and with Tilly’s two other children.

In June of 1997, he married Italian film producer Livia Giuggioli and they have two sons - Luca and Matteo. They separated in 2019, about two years after they revealed Livia had an affair with an Italian journalist while the couple were briefly separated. Their publicists released a statement saying that the couple “maintain a close friendship and remain united in their love for their children.”

Father:

David Norman Lewis Firth

Like his wife, David’s parents were also Methodist missionaries in India. Together with his wife, they worked as teachers and government officials in Nigeria and in several other cities. One thing that was common with him and his family is that they were almost always on the move. As a missionary, he was here and there until finally, he returned to England with his family. On getting to Britain, David settled in Winchester as a history lecturer at the new University of Winchester.

Mother:

Shirley Jean Firth

Shirley was a Comparative Religion lecturer at King Alfred’s College. She is very proud of her son’s achievements seeing that while he was raised they were quite poor. Shirley has been a supportive mom since her son first expressed his desire to be an actor and she is beyond exhilarated that his dreams have today become a reality.

Sister:

Kate Firth

Kate the middle-born Firth child and only girl is now a stage actress and occasional voice coach. She was born in Nigeria while her parents were missionaries there. Today, she has a huge bank of knowledge in psychology, therapeutic counseling and human communication. After her wedding, she relocated to California for a while then returned to England in 1992. Kate currently lives in London with her family and is very close to her actor brother. She even helped in coaching Colin for his tasking role as King George 6 in the critically acclaimed movie for which he is most recognized.

Brother:

Jonathan Stephen Firth

Unlike the other Firth actor, Jonathan is not as popular; he is just one of those average artists. He was born in England and still lives there till date. He is an actor and is best known for his works in British television shows.

ex-girlfriend:

Meg Tilly

Firth dated actress Meg Tilly for about five years and in this period had a son with her. While he was with Tilly, they both thought they would be together forever but marriage never fell in the picture, they were just from two separate worlds. Tilly was the more countryside girl who was satisfied with life in a cabin while Firth had to be in the city surrounded by family.

Initially, they both thought they could make it work with Colin shuttling between work in London and his lover and son in Vancouver. The strain was huge and no commitment was going to salvage their different wants and career location. After their split, Meg retired from being an actress and took to writing as her new line of work. Meg eventually remarried and says she is still friends with the British actor Firth.

ex-spouse:

Livia Giuggioli

Colin saw Livia as the smartest Italian beauty on earth and within a year of dating, they decided to get married in June 1997.

Firth and Giuggioli previously split in 2015 after the Italian businesswoman admitted to having an affair with journalist Marco Brancaccia. The relationship was exposed when Giuggioli accused Brancaccia of stalking her.

Son:

William Joseph Firth

Like his parents, Will is an actor.

Son:

Luca Firth

Son:

Matteo Firth

colleague:

Jessica Lange

colleague:

Willem Dafoe

colleague:

Gwyneth Paltrow

colleague:

Renée Zellweger

colleague:

Cillian Murphy

colleague:

Liam Neeson

colleague:

Kevin Bacon

colleague:

Amanda Seyfried

colleague:

Helena Bonham Carter

colleague:

Benedict Cumberbatch

References

• Colin Firth: The Biography
  2011