Colin Firth, Tom Hooper and Michael Palin Discuss Stammers at “The King’s Speech” Premiere

At a recent charity premiere screening of THE KING’S SPEECH, Colin Firth, director Tom Hooper, and Michael Palin (who was there to support the film and the charity, The Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children) stopped by to have a chat about the new film, which to many people’s surprise (and elation) has so far been a storming success in critics’ land (stateside), most notably garnering seven Golden Globes nominations. Huzzah!

THE KING’S SPEECH follows the story of public talk-shy King George VI, the Royal leader who suffers from a speech impediment the likes of which would have any normal man/woman/child trembling in their large/medium/tiny boots. His wife, Queen Elizabeth (aka the Queen Mother played by Helena Bonham-Carter) enlists the help of a less-than-traditional speech therapist, Leonard Logue (played by the magnificent, Geoffrey Rush) to try to bring the King out of his jewel-encrusted shell. Logue’s unorthodox teaching methods and outlandish behaviour run in stark contrast to the typically British stiff-upper-lip style of the King, but a conflict of personality is at the heart of this entertaining spectacle. For our review, click here.

Audiences that go looking for the typical period drama may be in for quite a shock though, as this film is far from being a glorified history lesson. In fact, when we spoke to director Tom Hooper at the premiere, he was quick to state his opinion on the oft-made (also can be read as: perhaps boring) period drama and why he wanted to steer clear of this overdone type-set.

“The fact that [THE KING’S SPEECH] was a Royal drama made me kind of wary and I did everything I possibly could to subvert the cliché […] in the way I approached it. The film doesn’t start with a man being dressed by servants in full Royal regalia; it starts with a man in a dark overcoat and a black bag against a dirty brick wall in a Wembley corridor, scared out of his wits. Over and over again I tried to make sure that I subverted [the audiences] expectations.”

Colin Firth, who plays the well-liked, well-respected but tight-lipped King Bertie, only served to agree with the director, adding, “I thought that maybe it’s only going to be for people who like period dramas or maybe it’s only going to be for people who are only interested in films about the Royal family […] but it hugely resists all those characterizations once you’ve actually seen it. And everyone I know who’s liked it, [has done so] for different reasons or come from a completely different demographic. Very young [or] very old, it doesn’t seem to matter where they come from.”

Hooper admitted that part of the success of the movie seems to be because of the public appetite for regal stories, possibly sparked by the media frenzy of Prince William’s engagement. “If you look at the reaction to the Royal Wedding for example,” he says, “it is absolutely astonishing. In America and here, it really is a national obsession, and in terms of ‘entertainment UK’ it’s a huge asset which drives a huge amount of media coverage.”  As to why he was drawn to the story, Hooper says he was attracted to it in part because of the figure of this endearing King, “there’s something about King George VI that helped protect the monarchy [during the abdication crisis in 1936], because I think he did so much to humanize it. When you have a monarch that speaks on the radio and he’s struggling to speak to you […] it means the king is less remote because he’s got a basic flaw.”

In the film, King George is portrayed as a warm and good-humoured man, so who better to play him than an actor who can embody both these characteristics while having the best Queen’s English accent in the history of accents? When asked about the reasons why he thought the movie has been such a success, Firth told us that the answer was pretty simple:

“It’s easy enough for me to draw attention to what I like about the film. […] There are some very simple reasons. It is funny, it’s poignant, it’s uplifting, and it’s dramatic. People laugh and they cry. Both of those things are very difficult to pull off in my profession, and [THE KING’S SPEECH] achieves all of that.”

One of the many things that has been praised about the movie, is Firth’s ability to take on a convincing stammer. But surely, we thought, wouldn’t the development of such a believable speech impediment have had some effect on the way he talked outside of filming? “[If affected me] a little bit,” he says, “but it wasn’t just me, everybody seemed to lose their fluency on the set. It was rather infectious.”

“I don’t think it’s a real stammer, which was made very clear to me by people who worked with us and deal with it and campaign about awareness of it, because stammering and just getting tongue-tied are not the same thing. Nevertheless, if you spend enough time interfering with your own speech patterns, you can actually develop a bit of a habit, but I think that’s all that happened and it happened to everybody on the set.

Questioned as to whether he’d got back to his normal level of fluency he laughed, “well if I start talking about it, there’s a danger that it will kick in again.” Helena Bonham Carter mentioned in a previous interview about the film that she had mentioned it to Prince Charles and implored him to watch it, but when we asked Firth if the Royal stamp of approval had been sought whilst filming, he replied, “I didn’t really look for that as an option, I don’t think we should be in the business of getting stamps of approval, but I think it was more important that we were sensitive to the fact that we were playing those with living relatives, whether that applies to the speech therapist or anybody indeed who is represented in the film.

The screening was held to support The Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children charity, to which Palin lent his name after playing Ken in A FISH CALLED WANDA and because his father also suffered from a speech impediment. The veteran comedic actor was at the premiere to show his support for the movie, which he told us could help make a change in the way stammers are perceived.

“I think [the film] could make an enormous difference because it’s very important to see people with stammers as just the same as anyone else. They laugh the same, they cry the same, one just has the slight problem of speaking fluently […]. It’s very important to show that a stammer isn’t just a comedy vocal touch [and that] stammerers are no different from anybody else.”

THE KING’S SPEECH is out in the US now, and set for release in the UK on January 7^th 2011.