If you hold a British passport, you are legally required to have strong opinions about who made a better Mr. Darcy: Colin Firth in the BBC’s 1995 miniseries adaptation of Pride & Prejudice or Matthew Macfadyen in Joe Wright’s 2005 film. In a wonderfully polite twist that Austen would surely approve of, though, it turns out Firth and Macfadyen would probably vote for each other. While promoting their first movie together, Netflix’s Operation Mincemeat— a World War II thriller based on a true story and directed by Shakespeare in Love’s John Madden—Firth told a reporter that he had “fall[en] in love, bromantically” with the Succession star, and, based on a recent Vanity Fair interview, it seems the feeling is mutual.
After the Bridget Jones’s Diary actor declared that “shallow chitchat” cemented their friendship, Macfadyen deadpanned that he thought it had more to do with their similar taste in clothes: “I would come dressed as Colin, and vice versa.” “It’s quite thrilling when you find yourself giggling, and you can make a joke, which isn’t a very good one, and you’re getting [a good response],” added Firth. “Matthew’s quite an easy crowd.”
And while Firth and Macfadyen never actually compared notes about playing Darcy—“I [only] remember saying there is this sort of weird pressure that comes with playing stuff like that,” Macfadyen said—Firth was full of praise for Macfadyen’s performance. “It’s much more challenging to do it as a feature film. Because if you do a six-parter, you’ve got six hours to put it all in and let it unfold at a pace which is closer to that of a book. I think what was masterful about Matthew’s interpretation was that he did manage to tell that whole story in a more condensed form. And I think that’s very difficult because it’s so dependent on a slow reveal.” As for Macfadyen? He revealed earlier in the same press tour that Firth had “a big influence” on his decision to become an actor in the first place.
Someone check on Cousin Greg.
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