Why do you act?

Colin Firth: Starting out, people said to me, "Why don't you get a proper job? What are you doing? You're putting on a frock and mincing about on stage in front of the camera?"

Stanley Tucci: But you were doing that at home, too. (Laughs.)

Firth: True. So (acting) is irrelevant yet it's critical. When people are at their most desperate, (they) will still draw on the creative process. Even if you don't have food, that will still be there. Whether it's an art or not -- this is a discussion that I've actually had over the years -- I don't think it's an exact science.

Nicholas Cage: What is it with the word "art"?

Firth: It's an evaluation people put on it. I've seen acting that is definitely not art. It's subjective.

Stanley Tucci, left, Peter Sarsgaard, Christoph Waltz, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman and Nicolas Cage

Is there a single moment that made you realize you were going to make this your life's work?

Firth: I did have a moment like that but it was combined with other things. One was that I was running out of options at school. What else can I do? Brain surgery wasn't really working out. Rocket science. I'm only half joking. My family is full of doctors. I was about 14 and I said, "Well, this treadmill I'm waking up to face every day of stuff I'm not into -- whether it was math class or chemistry or whatever -- it does not have to be my destiny for the rest of my life." Paul Scofield in "A Man for All Seasons" was around that time. I'd seen brilliant performances but I suddenly saw this paradox. How can I see integrity represented through a craft which is inherently fake? That was my young mind saying, "Well, you're faking it, right? You're not really Thomas More. It's all someone else's lines." I was seeing something that looked more like truth than I had ever seen.

Isn't there also a personal toll that the job can take on an actor?

Firth: I remember a student writing an angry letter to my drama school saying, "You did not prepare us. You did everything to give us ideals, you did everything to train us. But you did nothing to prepare us for the grim realities of ordinary life or the struggle to prove yourself or the crap that you get to perform, unless you're very, very lucky." That is a horrendous frustration. Because that need to do it -- you're very lucky if anyone is going to facilitate that.

I ran into Colin at the Mamma Mia! premiere and was standing there chatting with him and just kept looking at him and could not believe it. He didn’t know that I wanted him, because his agent said he’s not available. So we moved later, he was wrapping Dorian Gray, our other actor took a job that paid more money, which I understand. Colin was the right guy. What I loved about him and the reason I thought he was right is that he’s often a little bit flat, on the surface, but he’s not flat. There’s an inner life to Colin coming through his eyes you just feel, there’s just so much more there.

I said to him, ‘There’s a wonderful piece of film of Bill Clinton sitting being interviewed about Monica Lewinsky, did you see his face? We’re just going to hold the camera on you, and its going to be about your face.’ And we got to a point where I think he kept waiting. We did three thousand feet of that, I just couldn’t say cut! Because I get to a moment where I’d think Colin was thinking, ‘is he going to say cut?’ So he’d just go deeper and more and more into it, and the whole crew was just holding their breath. I couldn’t say cut, because just when you were about to, he’d start doing something else. So that was Colin. That was me holding the camera on Colin.

At the CAA screening I felt so sick. I felt just ill. I really, I’m not someone who ever throws up, but I was close. And then the reaction was very positive. But this was still a room of agents, friends, so Venice was really the first showing to an actual audience. I was on autopilot.

I wish I could freeze the moments after Colin won the [best actor] award standing in front of the boat, the wind blowing his hair, so relaxed and happy. Indiewire

Described as the role of a lifetime, it won the Best Actor prize for Firth at the Venice Film Festival and there is Oscar talk about his performance. Ford, who financed his first feature himself, sparked the British actor's interest by bypassing agents to contact him.

"He just sent me an email," recalled Firth. "I'd never given him my address, but I was struck by the eloquence and sensitivity of what he wrote. Also the choice of material interested me because it wasn't what I expected. I mean, 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. Choosing the life of a lonely professor in despair in 1962 doesn't really seem like an opportunity to show your spring collection."

Firth made enquiries and discovered people took both Ford and the project seriously. Once he agreed to sign on, things moved quickly. There was no rehearsal and very little preparation. Firth arrived in Los Angeles on a Saturday, was on the set the following Monday and Ford shot the film in a brisk 21 days.

"The script was quite sparse and it left a lot of space," said Firth. "Tom didn't tell me how to do anything and didn't bombard us with verbal instructions. He gave us a lot of freedom and I felt I was being given a chance to do things I wasn't normally given a chance to do."