Colin Firth talks about his title character, Arthur Newman

In "Arthur Newman," a dark indie comedy, Colin Firth plays a depressed divorcee who fakes his own death and adopts a new identity to forge a new and better life. The role marks Firth's first lead one since his Academy Award-winning turn as King George VI in "The King's Speech," yet despite their obvious differences (the titular Arthur Newman is a modern day Yank), the film finds Firth once again getting inside the mind of a guy at odds with himself.

Photo courtesy of Solar Entertainment Corp.

Directed by first-time feature filmmaker Dante Ariola, "Arthur Newman" also stars fellow Brit Emily Blunt as a troubled woman who meets Firth's character on his journey and decides to follow suit. Together the pair embark on a cross-country spree of life-swapping and bed-hopping. 

Watching "Arthur Newman," Colin Firth could never fake his own death and switch identities.

I suppose that’s true. Although I’m an actor so, in a way, perhaps we’re doing something equivalent in hiding in plain sight. I’m not claiming that theory as my own, necessarily; that’s a spur of the moment reflection. I think a lot of people have that fantasy of a clean start, reinventing themselves completely -- running away. Most people don’t follow through with that.

I was very struck when, a few years ago, I was reading Nick Hornby’s book, "A Long Way Down." It’s about a bunch of people who meet up and try to commit suicide on the same night on the top of a building. One of the characters realizes that he doesn’t really want to -- that he can’t. But it was always a comfort to him to think that suicide was an option, and the fact that that option’s gone makes him feel suffocated. This idea that there’s some kind of way out, whether it’s an extreme one or just running away from your life – I think some people have this private and secret notion that lurks somewhere. And if you become very familiar to people, that option is gone. In fact, it’s very hard to disappear, just for minutes. I think something’s lost, an awful lot of good stuff comes your way, but something’s lost.

Have you ever felt the urge to run away?

No, actually, I think I’ve spent too much of my life moving around, traveling. I’ve personally never had any of the above fantasies.

We’re always fascinated by people like Lord Lucan; a famous scandal of a murder case, and the suspect disappeared. People still speculate on him being alive -- there are routine sightings of the guy. I think part of it is this idea: could you successfully pull that off? Could you fake your identity? Go and lead a new life? No, I don’t want to run away from my life; I take little excursions on a very regular basis. If I have any of that in me, it’s taken care of.

Arthur is quite the ambiguous figure. What appealed to you about the character?

I liked the ambiguity. I’ve seen quite a lot of material, and, whatever the quality of it, it observes certain conventions; not that that’s a problem, necessarily, but this one didn’t. It brushed with certain conventions but it doesn’t really follow any of the trajectories that you expect. It jumped out because it was so different and so enigmatic, in a way.

I’m interested in the notion of an awful lot of things that come up in it. The notion of feeling you haven’t made your mark, of missing your moment. Trying to have a control over your identity, trying to manipulate that. And the idea of being invisible and not wanting to be invisible -- wanting to force a dream to come true. I didn’t sit down and think them through the way I’m trying to think through them now, but these are the things that swam around my mind when I was looking at it. I just thought it would be a very interesting leap into the unknown.

I liked the fact that it was kind of a risk; it was small, no notion in anybody’s mind of what it was going to do out in the market place. It was just a story with characters that got under my skin. And I found that scenes often revealed themselves as we played them; they could throw up unexpected tones and qualities -- that I’ve found fascinating.

I very much believed in the existence of this man. We never quite know, until we try them on for size, what bit of yourself you’re gonna find in a character, but there was something there that chimed with me.

What specifically?

I don’t know. There’s an awful lot of stories to be told, and the stories being told at the moment have much to do with memory and regret. Some of the books I’ve been reading over the summer -- Dave Egger’s book, "Hologram for the King," is about a man my age, a little bit older than me, and the sense of dislocation and regretful reflection, and the failure to have made an impact, and lost opportunity. I just finished Richard Ford’s book, "Canada," which I think has similar themes as well.

“Arthur Newman” is released and distributed by Solar Entertainment Corporation.