ABSTRACT |
Although
British actor Colin Firth was first known internationally for his
performance in Milos Forman’s Valmont, the villain viscount of
Chordelos de Laclos’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses will forever
remain in the popular imagination as the one played by John Malkovich.
The year 1995, however, brought a change to Firth’s acting career when
he was cast to play the character of Mr. Darcy in a BBC adaptation of
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. For six weeks the new Mr.
Darcy was subjected to constant scrutiny, not only on British TV screens
but also in the press.
This
paper analyses the evolution of a cultural phenomenon that has
transformed the British actor into a sexual icon, a representation of
the new, sensitive man of the 1990s, who, having successfully –although
painstakingly– avoided being typecast as the protagonist of Austen’s
novel, is now even treated on a first name basis on the increasing
number of websites fans have dedicated to him.
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