HE has starred as heart-throb Mr Darcy, Bridget Jones’ boyfriend and even the King.
Now Hampshire Hollywood star Colin Firth has landed a new starring role – as a bear.
The Oscar-winning actor, who went to school in Winchester and studied at Barton Peveril College in Eastleigh, will provide the voice of Paddington Bear in a new film based on the adventures of the duffle coat-wearing children’s book character.
Paddington, famous for his love of marmalade sandwiches and named after the London station where he was found, was created by Michael Bond.
He first appeared in 1958 in his first book, A Bear Called Paddington, which told how he was packed off from darkest Peru and made his way to Britain where he was adopted by the Brown family.
The Hampshire-born performer joins a cast that includes Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville, who plays Mr Brown, Nicole Kidman, Julie Walters and Jim Broadbent.
Colin, 52, said: '”Paddington will be computer generated, and I will speak his lines with, I suspect, a slight Peruvian flavour.
“Every other character in the film will be real, live human beings, but the idea is that Paddington will have something of me in his DNA because I'm going to do some sessions wearing one of those helmets with cameras to capture my face muscles, and all that data will somehow be incorporated into Paddington.”
Filming starts this month and it should be in cinemas by next November.
Colin, who won an Oscar for 2011 film The King’s Speech, is currently sporting a new slimline look after shedding the pounds to play a prisoner of war in upcoming Second World War film The Railway Man.
