Colin Firth accepted typecasting for fear of unemployment

LONDON - Actor Colin Firth has revealed that he had accepted being typecast because he was more afraid of not being employed.

Firth, who has been cast as the quintessential public school boy character in everything from ‘Pride And Prejudice’ to the ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ movies, also says he’s nowhere near as well-to-do in real life.

“I don’t know how many times I’ve read a script and thought ‘nobody knows how good I’d be at this character - but they want me to play that other one’,” the Daily Express quoted him as saying.

“It’s odd because I didn’t grow up speaking like this and have made a career out of it,” he said.

Firth says he picked up a Hampshire accent to fit in at his state comprehensive school in Winchester for fear of being bullied.

“I would not have survived in Hampshire if I’d spoken like my parents. When I was starting out, I thought I was so cutting edge - I had nothing to do with the middle classes,” Firth said.

“But at drama school people saw me as a Brideshead Revisited type. So I whored myself out immediately! I’ve embraced typecasting as a way of being employed. I’m more afraid of not being employed,” he added. (ANI)