Colin Firth Career Timeline - The Face interview 1987

It was Gore Vidal who said, while ruminating on the subject of Britain's decline, "What are you going to do with a country whose only real export in the past thirty years has been actors?" Step up production may have been the reply. The Face took six of the best from the Class of 86 and arranged a summit.
Picture show Paul McGann and Colin Firth [right].

The idea was simple but a real pig to arrange. Get six of the fine young turks af British acting, put them in a room together, roll the tapes and cameras.

Unfortunately, Daniel Day Lewis was too busy filming /.../ and Gary Oldman was rehearsing /.../ though he turned up a few days later for a session on his own.

Nevertheless, on a late November morning, Tim Roth, Bruce Payne, Paul McGann, Spencer Leigh and Colin Firth all appeared - increadibly - at Robert Erdmann's East London Studio. On offer, the two things actors reputedly love best: free lunch and gratis publicity. Make that three things. Actors love to 'network' and , of the above, virtually all had met one or two /.../ of the others either socially or professionally. /.../

When he finally enters late in the day (Chaka Khan having given way to Anita Baker, the brie all but crawling off the table), Colin Firth, a tall, duffle-coated figure, is immediately co-opted into the group photo backline without the benefit of makeup or warm-up.

Despite having met Roth two years ago under similar circumstances, Firth is clearly the outsider. He's still wondering what exactly Hollywood is, having been treated to the whole 'go West young actor' routine following his debut in Another Country.

Hollywood, however, doesn't really interest the diffident, beautifully-spoken Londoner who has unintentionally "cornered the market in wet, sensitive, naive young chaps" and has just emerged "blinking in the light, like a refugee" from a solid year's work on just-screened Granada TV epic Lost Empires. This distance has caused Firth to question the very essence of acting, "putting on a frock and chasing around one's ego". He's not sure he wants to be doing it when he's 45.

"I don't think any of the people here can do exactly what I or Tim do and I don't feel competitive, but I don't feel intimidated either. Now Anthony Hopkins, that's genius."

That's also the challenge.