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"People rather casually talk about torture as being mediaeval," he says, when the issue of waterboarding rears its head (Lomax is seen being tortured in precisely the same way in the film). (Although both Firth and Kidman did visit him, an ailing Lomax passed away prior to the film's completion.) Now, having immersed himself in the issue, Firth has plenty to say on the subject. It's a curious twist of fate for Firth, who hadn't read Lomax's memoir prior to being cast to play the man. I now know that the person he met and reconciled with was Nagase Takashi, so it all joins up. And I knew he'd had a reconciliation with his captors.
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I knew he'd been on the railway, we knew that about him. He was an extraordinary gentle, wise fellow. "Interestingly enough, he was a local parliamentary candidate in the area where I grew up. "I knew about the Death Railway because I knew a man who'd been on it," Firth says, when I ask about his response to the material, following the film's world premiere in Toronto. Regardless of how successful they are, Firth always seems to emerge triumphant (or unscathed). Socially and politically aware, with a genuine concern for his fellow man (and woman), he also still manages a respectable three films a year. He's happily married to Italian director-producer Livia Giuggioli, is a proud father of three and, as an activist and humanitarian, continues to support a raft of organisations. Today, looking healthy and content at 53, Colin Firth, CBE, would seem to have it all. (He was the last of the so-called Brit Pack of actors, emerging from late 1980s Britain, and achieved arguably the greatest success from that period). Besuited and bespectacled in a smart, Italian-designer sort of way, he could almost still be the same man whose late-career jolt by way of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, back in 1995, saw Hollywood finally sit up and take note. But you'd be hard-pressed to find a better way of succinctly describing one of Britain's most respected and decorated actors.Īffable and engaging, far beyond the call of duty, the Oscar-winning star of The King's Speech is thoughtful and measured when interviewed. The term debonair barely begins to sum up Colin Firth, forever associated by women of a certain age with Jane Austen's dashing Mr Darcy.