Arthur Newman: Colin Firth & Emily Blunt

When Colin and Emily entered the room at The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, they were greeted, “Welcome your majesties.” It felt perfectly appropriate, not only because both actors have played royal figures, but also because they are wonderfully regal.

Their latest film Arthur Newman is out this month and features the two Brits in convincing American roles. Blunt plays Mike, a quirky but fragile girl on the run, and Firth charms as Arthur. Both find solace in one another after randomly meeting on the road. Written by Hollywood veteran Becky Johnston and directed by newcomer Dante Ariola, it’s an odd-couple story about two people searching for their identities. Blunt and Firth bring Johnston’s script to life, making it easy to relate to such wanderlust misfits. The film poses the question, ‘What if you could go back and do it all differently?’

Along with a roundtable of other journalists, I was able to get some insight from the beloved actors. And yes, they’re even more captivating in person. Oh, and hilarious too.

You get into other peoples’ skin with the very nature of your job and here you are playing two people who want to take on other personas. Life imitating art?

B: I think a lot of people want to, at some point in their life, be someone else, run away, escape in some way. We have a job which allows for that, have an outlet for it.

F: I think that [Arthur’s] role up to that point in his life is ludicrous. He doesn’t necessarily deliver what anyone else needs. His marriage obviously didn’t work. His relationship with his son is catastrophic. He’s not getting anywhere with either the gulf or the job or anything. All this doing the right thing in a rather precious, prissy sort of way hasn’t worked out. That was probably the role. In some ways rather escaping his true self, he was probably shedding something that was bogus from the start.

What interested you both about these characters? They’re both very complex. We see with you, [Emily], in the beginning she’s a little bit lost and there’s this kindness underneath.

B: I’m glad! She’s not just a hot mess! I think Arthur is much kinder to Mike than she is to him. I think she finds it kind of baffling at first because she really tries desperately to keep everyone at arms length by adopting this crazy persona.

F: They’re both looking for connection. What could seem like an implausible coincidence isn’t really chance. I mean it’s chance they meet, but she would have gone her own way right at the beginning if she had not found out that he was lying about who he was. That’s the very reason she decides to stick with him for a while. She’s driven by that sense of commonality there. These are two people who somehow have managed to deny themselves any real intimacy for years and years. It’s only when they literally dress up as others and talk like somebody else that they allow themselves to get sexual, get intimate.

B: Get sexual. [Everyone laughs] Sorry Colin.

F: It’s very slightly exhausting.

Could you guys talk about the costumes? The glasses…

B: Do you not think Colin looks so sexy in his salmon polo t-shirts and creepy glasses?

F: By the end of it, I was rocking that look.

ATW: I’m from Texas. That’s how they dress.

F: Well, I was gunna say! I thought Come on this is too much, but then I walked into environments where…ok, this is subtle.

ATW: They start dressing that way in college.

B: Wow.

F: That is wow.

At least you weren’t wearing a green jumpsuit to do motion capture.

B: Have you done that before? When did you do that?

F: It was A Christmas Carol. It was very, very heavy spandex, man-hood canceling spandex. I thought I’ve got to do something about this. I’m not going on that set on my first day in this indignity.

B: Was it tight on the legs as well?

F: Yes. Let’s not go down…

B: I told Colin he had spindly legs one day so that’s why I’m laughing about that.

F: You told me on several days. [laughs]

ATW: You guys really didn’t have much rehearsal and got to know each other as the characters got to know each other and I sensed that. Talk about that process because clearly now you guys have a great chemistry.

F: I remember we talked about this at the time. We’d encounter a scene with a pre-conception about it. And then often we were surprised by it. In some ways it always felt like that. The first reading of the script had a lot of mystery to it for me. I wasn’t sure who these people were going to turn out to be, it was a little bit elusive. The scene where she gets in the bridal outfit for the first time, I thought that was going to be a romp. Actually someone thing else happened when she stood at the top of the stairs. The tone changes and actually there was something rather tender and sad about the need these two people have. I didn’t see that until we played it.

B: Until we did it, yea.

ATW: I felt that in the Polaroid scene too. When you actually turn the camera on him, there’s a sadness there that came out of nowhere.

B: To be honest, that wasn’t really scripted, that moment. I just sort of happened, it was nice to work in that way.

F: One of the great things about Dante is that he comes in with really strong ideas, but he’s not rigid about them. That’s the perfect combination so that you have a great launch pad for everything. A director who’s flexible to the point of having absolutely noting to offer from the beginning is no good at all. Same with an actor; come in with something and be prepared to make it malleable. It was constantly quite exhilarating.

How much of the film did you get to improv?

B: We didn’t really. I’ve worked both ways. I’ve done films that have been entirely improvised and that’s exhilarating in itself and challenging in itself. But this one, I think there was specificity to these characters and how they interacted that was all Becky Johnston and I never felt the need to try and elaborate on anything she had written.

How do you like playing Americans? Your accents were good!

B: Well good! Bless you! I like it! I find that it really helps that I live in the States; I’m married to an American. I have lots of American friends. I think that if you’re immersed in a sound on a habitual level, I think that helps you a lot. But I don’t necessarily think of it as an accent, I think you’ve got to just find a voice for the person and who that person is becomes the voice. You’ve got to do all the technical stuff and just hurl it out the window because you’ve got to just play the character.

These two characters are so different from anything you’ve played in the past. How did you prepare to get into their heads?

B: God! I never know how to talk about the process.

Did you read about someone who has mental illness in the family?

B: I read some books of schizophrenia. Not that Mike is actually schizophrenic; she’s just terrified she will become so. I got an idea for what maybe her upbringing might have been like. I never really like talking about the process because I don’t know how to talk about it without sounding either wanky or that I don’t know what I’m talking about! It just sort of happens, Ithink a lot!

F: However much technique you draw on or how much training you have, actually is a mystery. Otherwise, we’d be doing master works every time.

What were your thoughts when you saw the final product for the first time?

F: To be frank we have not seen the final product.

B: We saw a very early cut.

F: I’ve been told that it’s not radically changed, but that it has changed. But again I’m not quite sure what I expected. I’m not quite sure what I expected the film to be when I read it. I’m not quite sure what I expected the finished product to be after we finished shooting it. I don’t felt I’ve ever felt that I’m in such a kind of unknown zone. I felt complete belief in the world that we were in. I felt very warm towards these characters and felt I was rooting for them.

ATW: I think what’s interesting is what you’re saying when you first read the script is how I felt as the audience, going I don’t really know what this is or what’s going on. Specifically the moment that launches the story when you steal the man’s wallet and you, [Colin] save him.

F: I think the characters surprise themselves at every step. And you’re absolutely right and in some ways I think it’s going to be difficult for this film out there. Expectations define people; when’s the romantic comedy going to start? I think if this film was in Swedish or Polish with unknown actors there would be less of that sort of expectation. If you have familiar faces in something that has to do with people that are inconspicuous and lost, I think it takes a while to adjust to what it is, but that is precisely what drew me to it. I think life is more like that.

Cinedigm releases Arthur Newman April 26^th