I think it helps to get a film made because people who put money in are nervous. They like to have something recognisable enough to make them secure that there's a pattern there - that someone else put their money into something like this and made it back.

Colin Firth

Because I am an Englishman I spent most of my life in a state of embarrassment.

Colin Firth

awkward feelings life

It's a very dangerous state. You are inclined to recklessness and kind of tune out the rest of your life and everything that's been important to you. It's actually not all that pleasurable. I don't know who the hell wants to get in a situation where you can't bear an hour without somebody's company.

Colin Firth

important want love

I'm fully aware that if I were to change professions tomorrow, become an astronaut and be the first man to land on Mars, the headlines in the newspapers would read: `Mr. Darcy Lands on Mars.

Colin Firth

mars land men

I would rather five people knew my work and thought it was good work than five million knew me and were indifferent.

Colin Firth

indifferent good-work people

My singing voice is somewhere between a drunken apology and a plumbing problem.

Colin Firth

apology singing voice

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.

Colin Firth

character interesting thinking

My looks aren't something that come dazzlingly through in everything I do. I can be made to look one way or the other fairly easily... I am still not recognised on the street that much.

Colin Firth

made looks way

I have almost no memory of them [St. Trinian's films]. I don't think I've seen them since I was quite young. I was a bit frightened of the girls. I fancied them. Even though I was young, I found them attractive and rather frightening. I've always been attracted to frightening girls! I'm married to one!

Colin Firth

girl memories thinking

When I'm really into a novel, I'm seeing the world differently during that time— not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I'm actually walking around in a haze, spellbound by the book and looking at everything through a different prism.

Colin Firth

different book world

I'll be your friend so long as you're not crap

Colin Firth

crap long

I absolutely don't care about my looks and I'm so used to them that I wouldn't change a thing. I would end up missing my defects.

Colin Firth

care missing looks

Whenever you take on playing a villain, he has to cease to be a villain to you. If you judge this man by his time, he's doing very little wrong.

Colin Firth

judging littles men

Almost every comedy you see is about people making all wrong choices and making all the errors of judgement possible. Good comedy is when it works on this scale. Because it is psychologically very real.

Colin Firth

errors real people

I think everyone is throwing happy stuff at you, and that's when you come over all humbug. It's happy stuff in your face, happy stuff is being sold to you.

Colin Firth

faces stuff thinking

The skill of a good actor is to make it always seem like you're in that fantastically spontaneous moment. Very often, a stand-up comedian has a different instinct, which is to reinvent. Once you've laid down some material, and made them laugh, you move on and find some new material.

Colin Firth

skills laughing moving

What infuriates me is that in America violence is judged in context, whereas language is not. So with language there is an arithmetic that says: one f* is a PG 13, two f*s is an R. They don't say: one bullet through one head is a PG 13, two bullets through more than two heads is an R.

Colin Firth

bullets two america

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.

Colin Firth

actors queens people

It does help to actually realize that however stunning the person who is, you know, fluttering eyelashes at you, she doesn't do anything to match up to your wife.

Colin Firth

eyelashes wife doe

It didn't have to be a newfound respect for the craft, I knew that it's notoriously difficult and frightens a lot of people off. I don't think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but the dying actor who says: "dying is easy, comedy is hard." I hear it.

Colin Firth

dying people thinking

I'm just the last English twit, really.

Colin Firth

twits lasts