As elegantly constructed as the perfect crime, Gambit stars Colin Firth as Harry Deane, an art curator who plots to swindle his boss (Alan Rickman) by convincing him to buy a fake Monet, with the help of PJ Puznowski (Cameron Diaz), a Texas rodeo queen who is much smarter than she first appears.
Co-starring Tom Courtenay as Harry’s forger accomplice and Stanley Tucci as a Teutonic art expert, it all adds up to the funniest farce of the year. Loosely based on the 1966 film starring Michael Caine, Gambit is directed by Michael Hoffman (The Last Station) from a script by Joel and Ethan Coen – and sees the first collaboration between the Oscar-winning Firth (The King’s Speech) and the dazzling Diaz (whose last UK-set comedy was 2006’s The Holiday). Here, Firth and Diaz talk about the trials and joys of filming – from confronting a real lion in Texas to dropping your trousers in The Savoy hotel.
Q: Which favourite work of art would you most like to appropriate?
Cameron Diaz: I don’t know if you consider a masterpiece, but I would take any Basquiat I could get my hands on!
Colin Firth: Obviously, I had a bit of an adventure with Vermeer [in The Girl With The Pearl Earring] a few years ago, and there were quite a few Vermeers…it would either be The View Of Delft, which blew my mind when I saw it. I was supposed to be looking at The Girl With The Pearl Earring! It would either be that or The Calling Of St. Matthew by Caravaggio.
Q: Colin, we don’t often see you in a physical comedy role. Did it give you a newfound respect for the craft? And how did you feel dashing around The Savoy hotel without your trousers?
CF: Gosh. Yes, it didn’t have to be a newfound respect for the craft. I knew that it was notoriously difficult, and frightens a lot of people off…I don’t think anyone knows quite who to attribute it to, but there’s the actor who says ‘Dying is easy, comedy is hard.’ I hear it. So I have a great deal of respect for the craft; I don’t know how much respect it has for me. It’s a precision process. Doing it on stage would be terrifying. Doing it on film has its own difficulties, because film is not conducive to spontaneity. You might have a run-through and get a few chuckles at 8 o’clock in the morning but you don’t keep laughing at the same thing all day long. You don’t have laughs as a reference point anymore. It becomes a bit of a science after that. You would love to be able to depend on a sense of spontaneity but hours of waiting and then hours of repetition are not conducive to spontaneity, so those are your obstacles. On the other hand, it’s a lot of fun. Plunging into physical comedy and abandoning all dignity, no-one can really hurt you much after that. You’ve done your worst!
Q: Did you feel self-conscious?
CF: Walking around in The Savoy hotel with it being open to the public? Not at all! Yes, of course. It was appalling. And Cameron Diaz, being the kind and sweet and supportive colleague she was, assured me there was nothing to worry about with my legs, and they were magnificent specimens. Actually, she burst into a spontaneous belly laugh!
CD: I think I pointed when I was laughing, at your knees particularly!
CF: I had to wait on stand-by to make an entrance at the lift doors and the Savoy, understandably, had not taken it upon themselves to advise every single one of their guests that there was a film taking place with a man without his trousers in the lobby. So guests would be on their way out for the evening and the doors would open and they’d see this somewhat over familiar English actor standing there with his trousers off, for no apparent reason in the corridor. Self-conscious? Yes!
Q: You seem to have paranoia about your legs, Colin. What’s the problem? I know many women who’d be thrilled to see Colin Firth in his boxer shorts…
CF: Well, there’s the thought, isn’t there?! And then there’s Gambit the film! You know what…I don’t know if it’s paranoia or not. I did take my trousers off and spend twenty minutes in a feature film with things on show. Whether that’s a way of exorcising paranoia, or that I’m secretly perfectly happy with them…I wouldn’t be able to decide.
Q: Have either of you conned your way into an acting job by claiming you had a skill that you didn’t possess?
CD: No, I have no problem saying ‘I have no idea how to do that. Can you please show me?’ But then once I’ve been shown the world changes for me and then I’m an expert!
CF: Yes, your lasso-ing skills became a bit of a problem on the set.
CD: I had to keep my technique sharp is all!
CF: Nobody snuck off the set without Cameron bringing them back!
Q: So you’ve never blagged a skill, Colin?
CF: I was in a car – meant to be driving. I was in a car, on flat ground, and I couldn’t make it go! Having taken numerous lessons, I was unable to produce any motion whatsoever under normal circumstances.
Q: And how did you feel when confronted with the lion?
CF: I was beside myself with terror! Under entirely safe circumstances…there were two lions, and it was magnificent. We had to travel to the lions. New Mexico was where we met our lions. Protective measures don’t include things like guns or metal doors; it’s a rather unconvincing filament of little wires, about two feet above the ground, which is apparently enough to deter the lion. But it’s all that’s between you and this enormous beast, which is a gorgeous thing to watch in motion, as long as it’s only interested in the little bits of flesh which are being deposited around to guide it from A to B. And there was a particular moment where it did seem to lose interest in those bits of flesh and take an interest in me. It was the eye contact moment where I nearly lost control of some essential muscles. It was pretty startling actually, to suddenly be focused on for that moment, because I don’t think it’s supposed to look at you, really. It must’ve lasted a nano-second and there was not very much danger but he did go back into his little house for about an hour afterwards!
CD: They actually told me that the lion was unhappy and asked me not to say anything to you!
Q: How did you deal with the people in The Savoy when you were trouser-less?
CF: Well, I don’t know how I dealt with it. They were there, and I was here, and it was a bit like how Harry Deane does in the film, really. ‘Evening!’ One lady, a little bit drunk, we actually met in the revolving doors, and she didn’t know anything about a film going on either. A whole intimate moment of ‘Where are your trousers?’ Basically, you have no choice but to brazen it out really and hope it’s over soon.
CD: Five days later!
CF: Of course it’s not just a day, but days and days of no trousers. People got leg fatigue!
Q: Cameron, did you get into that rodeo world and did you go and hang out there a bit? Was it a world you knew from growing up in the States?
CD: I did go down to Texas. I did do a little research into small towns down there, because I hadn’t been to any small towns in Texas. So I went down and I looked around. I found a bunch of the wardrobe; I found the hat – because everybody has to have their own hat. Found my hat, found my boots, found my buckle, and my jeans, and brought them back here. And I did some training with the roping for the calves. Of course, I didn’t get to film that but nonetheless, I knew how to throw a rope. It was a lot of fun. It’s such a fun, spirited world, and it is very Americana, and it is an essential part of the American experience and it’s alive and well and thriving in Texas.
Q: This is based on a Coen Brothers’ script. Did it feel like, at time, you were in the Coen universe?
CD: Definitely. The Coen universe was very prevalent. We stepped right into it. The story, the words, the rhythm, the broadness, the farce, all of it was very much their signature. So it was a lot of fun because you knew that you could take those characters and make them broad and make them big. The fact that PJ, being who she was, being American, from Texas…already a big personality and then her being dropped into this world, a different culture…she’s so open and Harry Deane is so closed up and repressed, and they’re as opposites as you can get.
Q: Colin, how has winning the Oscar changed your career?
CD: Well, he gets to have dinner with the Queen a lot now! I think four times while we were making this movie! The Queen takes up all of your dance cards!
CF: Cameron kept inviting me out to dinner and I kept being busy with the Queen!
GAMBIT is in cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 21 November
