From london-se1.co.uk, 23/5/03:
Colin Firth has been filming in Lower Marsh (London) with market traders hired as extras. The star has been making Trauma, a Warner film due for release late next year, which tells the story of a man who struggles to overcome the death of his partner. The Waterloo market was transformed for the three days of filming with extra stalls on both sides of the street and shops restocked for filming. The film company has paid £4000 to the traders to fund promoting the market which has recently suffered a loss in customer numbers following further office closures. Lower Marsh has also been promised a mention in the credits.

Colin Firth plays Ben in the film Trauma (2003)

Filmed in London and the Isle of Man, April/May 2003.

Tentative release, late 2004

SCREENPLAY: Richard Smith

DIRECTOR: Marc Evans (Master of the Moor)

PRODUCERS: Nicky Kentish Barnes and Jonathan Cavendish [Little Bird Films] for BBC Films and Warner Bros Pictures

CAST: Colin Firth, Mena Suvari, Naomie Harris, Tommy Flanagan et al.

STORYLINE: Ben (Colin Firth) wakes up from a coma in hospital to discover that he has been in a car crash. When he learns that his wife, Elisa (Naomie Harris), was killed in the accident, his entire world collapses. He attempts to rebuild his life by getting a new job and moving to a new apartment where he befriends his attractive neighbor, Charlotte (Mena Suvari). But his mind starts playing tricks on him, and he suddenly begins seeing his dead wife everywhere; fearful for his sanity he visits his childhood therapist. Charlotte, however, takes him to see a psychic instead, who gives him the chilling news that she senses his wife might still be alive. Meanwhile, someone is moving things around in his apartment and destroying cherished possessions. Then the police pay him a visit, they tell him he's being investigated for murder. Trauma is a gripping psychological thriller with Hitchcockian twists.

From the Daily Mail, 27 June 2003:
Colin Firth leads me through the basement room. "The blood on there looks real, doesn't it?" he says, pointing to the doors of what appears to be a body freezer in a morgue. "We're in a morgue?" I ask. "It's a morgue - but it's not really". In fact it's a carefully cobwebbed, blood splattered set for his new film - a very different affair from his romantic lead role as Mark Darcy in Bridget Jones's Diary. He stars with Mena Suvari in Trauma, a psychological chiller, which Marc Evans is directing for the aptly named Ministry of Fear film company. On this day, however, they're shooting in the bowels of the old Midland Hotel by St. Pancras station, London. Some of the cast and crew believe it's haunted.

The wife of Colin's character, Ben, has been killed in a car crash: "My apartment is an old ward in an old hospital and this is supposed to be the morgue." Although I know it's only a movie, the place gives me the creeps. /.../ As Colin puts it, his character "is deeply traumatized and he has a problem recalling what his reality was before the car accident, so we see the world through his very confused eyes. He lives alone in this flat and his world is very unsettling."

Colin thinks a little bit of fear is good for us. "If you spend your life wanting to keep everything light, you might end of a little bit twisted. I'd be suspicious of someone who is only ever laughing." Mena plays a neighbour, who tries to help him.

From the Daily Record 20 May 2003:
Meet the man who has a licence to hurl creepy crawlies at Colin Firth and Mena Suvari. Andrew Stephenson is an animal wrangler, who hunts down exotic and often grisly creatures for film crews. His latest project is in the Isle of Man on the set of Trauma, where he has the unique job of spraying the former Mr Darcy and the American Beauty actress with ants. "Colin Firth had to have about 50 ants on his arms, chest and legs for around two hours while they filmed. He was amazingly stoical about it, especially as the ants kept running off him, so we had to keep rounding them up and putting them back." Andrew used special sprays to make sure they didn't run up her nose or into her ears, and she remained remarkably calm. "I explained to all the actors beforehand that the ants would not harm them and that I could round them up at any time."

From the Isle of Man Examiner, 16 April 2003:
One of Hollywood's hottest young actresses is teaming up with one of Britain's favourite actors for a film to be shot in the Island at the end of the month. Mena Suvari, star of the Oscar-winning American Beauty, will be here filming the psychological drama Trauma alongside Colin Firth - hot off Bridget Jones' Diary and it will be his second visit to the Island after he appeared in Relative Values opposite Julie Andrews.