Colin Andrew Firth (born 10 September 1960) is an English actor and producer. He was identified in the mid-1980s with the "Brit Pack" of rising young British actors before gaining leading roles as well as numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Film Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Volpi Cup as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and three BAFTA TV Awards. In 2011, Firth was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.
For his portrayal of King George VI in the historical drama The King's Speech (2010) he earned the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was previously Oscar-nominated for playing a grieving gay man in the romantic drama A Single Man (2009), which earned him the BAFTA Award and the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. Firth is also known for his roles in A Month in the Country (1987), Tumbledown (1988), Valmont (1989), The English Patient (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Importance of Being Earnest (2002), and Love Actually (2003).
Firth portrayed Mark Darcy in the Bridget Jones film series (2001–2025), Harry Bright in the musical comedy Mamma Mia! (2008) and its 2018 sequel, and secret agent Harry Hart in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its 2017 sequel. He also took roles in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), 1917 (2019), The Secret Garden (2020), Operation Mincemeat (2021), and Disclosure Day (2026).
On television, he earned stardom and acclaim for his portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1995). He was Primetime Emmy Award-nominated for his portrayals of Dr Wilhelm Stuckart in the BBC film Conspiracy (2001), and Michael Peterson in the HBO limited series The Staircase (2022). In 2012, he founded the production company Raindog Films, under which he served as a producer for Eye in the Sky (2015) and Loving (2016). His films have grossed more than $3 billion from 42 releases worldwide.
Early life and education Colin Andrew Firth was born on 10 September 1960 in the village of Grayshott, Hampshire, to parents who were academics and teachers. His mother, Shirley Jean (née Rolles), was a comparative religion lecturer at King Alfred's College (now the University of Winchester); and his father, David Norman Lewis Firth, was a history lecturer at King Alfred's and education officer for the Nigerian government. Firth is the eldest of three children; his sister Kate is an actress and voice coach, and his brother Jonathan is also an actor. His maternal grandparents were Congregationalist ministers and his paternal grandfather was an Anglican priest. They did overseas missionary work, and both of his parents were born and spent part of their childhoods in India.
As a child, Firth frequently travelled due to his parents' work, spending some years in Nigeria.Stated in interview on Inside the Actors Studio, 2011 He also lived in St. Louis, Missouri, when he was 11, which he has described as "a difficult time". On returning to England, he attended the Montgomery of Alamein Secondary School (now Kings' School, Winchester), which at the time was a state comprehensive school in Winchester, Hampshire. He was still an outsider and the target of bullying. To counter this, he adopted the local working-class Hampshire accent and copied his schoolmates' lack of interest in schoolwork.
Firth began attending drama workshops at age 10, and by 14 had decided to be a professional actor. Until further education, he was not academically inclined, later saying in an interview, "I didn't like school. I just thought it was boring and mediocre and nothing they taught me seemed to be of any interest at all." However, at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, he was imbued with a love of English literature by an enthusiastic teacher, Penny Edwards, and has said that his two years there were among the happiest of his life.
After his sixth form years, Firth moved to London and joined the National Youth Theatre, where he made many contacts and got a job in the wardrobe department at the National Theatre. He subsequently studied at Drama Centre London.
Career 1983–1995: Early work and breakthrough Firth played Hamlet in the Drama Centre end-of-year production, and in 1984, Firth made his film debut as Tommy Judd, Guy Bennett's straight, Marxist school friend in the screen adaptation of the play Another Country (with Rupert Everett as Guy Bennett). It was the start of a longstanding public feud between Firth and Everett, which was eventually resolved. He was the lead in Camille (1984) with John Gielgud & Ben Kingsley. He starred with Sir Laurence Olivier in Lost Empires (1986), a TV adaptation of J. B. Priestley's novel.
In 1987, Firth and other up-and-coming British actors such as Tim Roth, Bruce Payne and Paul McGann were dubbed the 'Brit Pack'. That year, he appeared with Kenneth Branagh in the film version of J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country. Sheila Johnston observed a theme in his early work of playing those traumatised by war. He portrayed real-life British soldier Robert Lawrence MC in the 1988 BBC dramatisation Tumbledown. Lawrence was severely injured at the Battle of Mount Tumbledown during the Falklands War, and the film details his struggles to adjust to his disability whilst confronted with indifference from the government and public. It attracted controversy at the time, with criticism coming from left and right sides of the political spectrum. Despite this, the performance brought Firth a Royal TV Society Best Actor Award, and a nomination for the 1989 BAFTA Television Award. In 1989, he played the title role in Miloš Forman's Valmont, based on Les Liaisons dangereuses. Released just a year after Dangerous Liaisons, it did not make a big impact in comparison. That year he also played a paranoid, socially awkward character in the Argentinian psychological thriller Apartment Zero.
Firth finally became a British household name through his role as the aloof, haughty aristocrat Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Producer Sue Birtwistle's first choice for the part, he was eventually persuaded to take it despite his unfamiliarity with Austen's writing. He and co-star Jennifer Ehle began a romantic relationship during the filming, which received media attention only after their separation. Sheila Johnston wrote that Firth's approach to the part "lent Darcy complex shades of coldness, even caddishness, in the early episodes". The series was an international success and unexpectedly elevated Firth to stardomin some part due to a scene not from the novel, where he emerges from a lake swim in a wet shirt. Although he did not mind being recognised as "a romantic idol as a Darcy with smouldering sex appeal" in a role that "officially turned him into a heart-throb", he expressed the wish not to be associated with Pride and Prejudice forever. He was, therefore, reluctant to accept similar roles and risk becoming typecast.
1996–2008: Romance and ensemble films For a time, it did seem as if Mr. Darcy would overshadow the rest of Firth's career, and there were humorous allusions to the role in his next five movies. The most notable was his casting as the love interest Mark Darcy in the film adaptation of Bridget Jones's Diary, itself a modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Firth accepted the part as he saw it as an opportunity to lampoon his Mr. Darcy character. The film was very successful and critically well-liked. A 2004 sequel was mostly panned by critics but still financially successful.
Prior to this, Firth had a significant supporting role in The English Patient (1996) as the husband of Kristin Scott Thomas's character, whose jealousy of her adultery leads to tragedy. That year he also played the husband of the character of Kristin's sister, Serena Scott Thomas, in the television miniseries Nostromo. Of the two he said "Serena was a much more faithful wife." He next played the lead role as a school teacher and obsessed Arsenal F.C. football fan in the romantic fictional adaptation Fever Pitch (1997) of Nick Hornby's million-selling autobiographical essay Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life. He had parts in light romantic period pieces such as Shakespeare in Love (1998), Relative Values (2000) and The Importance of Being Earnest (2002). He appeared in several television productions, including Donovan Quick (an updated version of Don Quixote) (1999), and had a more serious role as Dr. Wilhelm Stuckart in Conspiracy (2001), concerning the Nazi Wannsee Conference, for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award.
Firth featured in the ensemble all-star cast of Richard Curtis's Love Actually (2003), another financial success which divided critics. He was also given solo billing as the romantic lead in Hope Springs, but it received very poor reviews and made little box-office impact. He starred as Amanda Bynes' character's father in the 2003 teen comedy What A Girl Wants, which was based on the play The Reluctant Debutante. He played painter Johannes Vermeer opposite Scarlett Johansson in the 2003 release Girl with a Pearl Earring; some critics praised the film's subtlety and sumptuous visuals, whilst others found it almost restrained, tedious and bereft of emotion. Nevertheless, it received mostly favourable reviews, was moderately successful and earned several awards and nominations.
In 2005 Firth appeared in Nanny McPhee with Emma Thompson, in which he plays a struggling widowed father, it was a rare venture for him into the fantasy genre. He also appeared in Where the Truth Lies, a return to some of his darker, more intense early roles, that included a notorious scene featuring a bisexual orgy. Sheila Johnston wrote that it "confounded his fans", but nonetheless that his character "draws knowingly on that suave, cultivated persona", which could be traced from Mr. Darcy. Other films from this time included Then She Found Me (2007) with Helen Hunt and The Last Legion (2007) with Aishwarya Rai.
In 2008, he played the adult Blake Morrison reminiscing on his difficult relationship with his ailing father in the film adaptation of Morrison's memoir, And When Did You Last See Your Father? It received generally favourable reviews. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave it four out of five stars. Manohla Dargis in The New York Times said: "It's a pleasure to watch Mr. Firth–a supremely controlled actor who makes each developing fissure visible–show the adult Blake coming to terms with his contradictory feelings, letting the love and the hurt pour out of him." Philip French of The Observer wrote that Firth "[does] quiet agonising to perfection." However, Derek Elley of Variety called the film "an unashamed tearjerker that's all wrapping and no center." While he conceded that it was "undeniably effective at a gut level despite its dramatic shortcomings", he added, "Things aren't helped any by Firth's dour perf, as his Blake comes across as a self-centered whiner, a latter-day Me Generation figure who's obsessed with finding problems when there really aren't any."