THE KING’S SPEECH directed by Tom Hooper, written by David Seidler, with Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter and Jennifer Ehle. An Alliance Films release. 111 minutes. Opens Friday (December 10). For venues, trailers and times, see Movies.
In A Single Man, Colin Firth plays a character so steeped in grief he can barely bring himself to speak. The role earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor last year, though he lost to Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart.
Now Firth looks set to bring home the statue for his role in The King’s Speech. Directed by Tom Hooper, the period drama gives the actor the chance to pull a 180 – playing a man who desperately wants to speak but can’t.
Firth plays George VI, who had to overcome a crippling stammer before he could address his subjects – a serious problem in the age of radio. Geoffrey Rush plays Lionel Logue, the Australian expat who became his trusted speech therapist, counselling the monarch through his deep unease with public speaking and his deeper reservations about assuming the throne after his brother, Edward VIII’s, abdication.
“It’s an interesting thing that someone born into royalty feels he’s not entitled to anything,” Firth says at the Toronto Film Festival, the picture of informal elegance in a black shirt and jacket.
“Even post-research, I still don’t feel I really know what it must be like. But I do feel that [George felt no] sense of entitlement. I don’t think he felt he deserved very much. If you look at his body language and demeanour, he has a quality that [indicates] that he doesn’t expect to be liked.”
As director Hooper explains, stripping Firth of his best-known asset – that mellifluous voice – forced the star to completely change his approach to performance.
“Colin’s by nature quite a conservative actor,” says the director in a separate interview. “He tends to worry that he’s doing something too much. So one of the enjoyable things was just to push him and say, ‘No, you can’t be minimalist playing this character. You have to really commit to it.’ I kind of enjoyed taking him on in that way.”
There was also the perverse joy of casting Firth – whose photograph belongs in the dictionary under “dashing” – as someone who’d rather do anything than talk to people.
“He’s such a raconteur, a charmer,” Hooper says, “and it was interesting not to allow him to be that. We worked very hard on this idea that stammering was all in the silences – in the absence of the voice. It wasn’t about what the noise was when it came out but about inhabiting the fear of those silences correctly.”
Fortunately for both of them, Firth responded to the psychology of the character as mapped out in David Seidler’s screenplay. He was even able to draw on his own experience with voice problems in his 20s.
“I had an injury to my vocal cord, abusing it through singing and acting,” says Firth. “And I went through a period where communication was quite a challenge. I couldn’t get myself heard properly, and I started to do things that people who stammer do, which is to strategize around it. You avoid places where you won’t be able to be heard properly. You say things differently. You don’t express yourself the way you want to you express yourself the only way you can. I think that had its echoes here.”
Interview Clips
Colin Firth on the appeal of a well-told period piece:
Tom Hooper on making historical lives relevant to contemporary audiences:
Colin Firth on working with Tom Ford and Tom Hooper:
Tom Hooper on the connection between star and subject:
Colin Firth on personal style and a love of language:
normw@nowtoronto.com
Read a review of The King’s Speech here.
