Quotes from Colin Firth

In this case it appealed to me partly because it felt close to me in some ways. This is about a confused, bewildered middle class Englishman adrift in smalltown America and that has definitely been me.

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

In filming, you're waiting - you're waiting for lights, you're waiting for people to set things up - and when you're not waiting, you're repeating.

'A great British icon' is not the phrase I'd use about anybody, but there are people you admire that happen to be British. I think it's a phrase that gets attached to anyone who's been around long enough to become overfamiliar.

I do think I'm a character actor.

Firth - all dodgy 'tache and frantic eyebrows - has got the sexual allure of a man who runs a swingers' club in Surbiton.

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

I've grown up surrounded by Americans and to a very large extent feel American. It sounds strange because I seem to be so quintessentially English in everyone's mind - and perhaps I am. Perhaps it's quintessentially English to have a fascination with America.

We are actors who show up for work in our sloppy gear, and we've got this extraordinary tailor. It's someone else who's done the design; someone else who's cut the suit; someone else who's measured it. Basically, your job is to just wear it.

I was delighted to become a popular-culture reference point. I'm still delighted about it actually, and I still find it to be weird.

People coming up and saying something nice is always welcome. But when you're being secretly photographed, that's not so nice. I would rather shake hands with someone and exchange a few words than take a selfie.

The last thing I would attempt to do is to buy clothes for a child I didn't know well.

To be bothered wherever you go - it's not a rational thing to want at all.

I've gotten involved in producing now, so the kinds of things that are more my own choice are more possible in that field because I don't have to be castable. I can actually get involved in getting stories off the ground that no one would ask me to be in because I'm the wrong age, the wrong sex, the wrong nationality, or whatever.

I backpacked through France and Italy in my teens, and then I was at Cannes with the first movie I did in '84.

Most actors will tell you they have some sort of dream of doing something other than what they're doing.

I was in a lake in 'Love Actually', and I was attacked by some hideous aquatic beast and was rushed to the hospital by a man named Rafael! Something stung my elbow, and it blew up to the size of a tennis ball.

We've always been involved with America - I have a son who lives there and it's a big part of my life.

Bridget Jones is part of literary lore now and actually to be a part of it is enormously flattering.

If you play a role, you want to familiarize yourself with that person's world. If I were playing an airline pilot or a doctor, I'd probably want to hang out with a doctor or an airplane pilot for a while, ask some questions. You don't get to hang out the kings. They don't help consult on movies. So your resources are, by necessity, secondary.

If one lazily thinks of what a fashion designer might do if he's going to conquer cinema next, it would be taking the opportunity to display his fashion sensibilities.

I do notice that when I've been away and I come back to London. People look at you. People are ready to pick arguments.

My primary instinct as an actor is not the big transformation. It's thrilling if a performer can do that well, but that's not me. Often with actors, it's a case of witnessing a big party piece but wondering afterwards, where's the substance?

I love 'Manhattan', and I know it's not one of Woody's favorites.