Geoffrey Rush remembers the first time we met.
"It was at a vodka party at Holt Renfrew," he says at the start of our interview this past Thursday. "I met Sienna Miller that night. And I've forgotten about her totally. But not you."
Smooth.
That evening unfolded in 2007 when both of us were experiencing the Toronto International Film Festival for the first time.
It was not the only night on which I would bump into Rush that year. After spotting him at numerous shindigs and finding him dancing at a hotel bar in the wee hours of the morning, I declared him "wildest party animal" in a TIFF recap.
He has returned to Toronto every year since and we have managed to catch each other out on the town. Best of all was when I emerged from an elevator last year to find him sitting in the back of a golf cart, waiting to be zipped up to a party on the roof of a parking lot. "Of all the gin joints in all the world …." he said, quoting one of the most memorable lines in film history.
So smooth.
"I think it was just the freaky coincidences of how we would collide in festival chaos," says the Aussie actor, speculating on why our run-ins have proven so memorable.
Clearly, Rush enjoys the more recreational aspects of TIFF (he was out again Thursday after a long day of press). But the primary reason for his visits are the films, from Elizabeth: The Golden Age to Bran Nue Dae, a feel-good Australian film which, just this week, is finally being released in major U.S. cities one year after its North American premiere here.
And this edition of the festival brings The King's Speech, in which he shares the screen with esteemed thespians Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter. The buzz on the film suggests that a busy awards season awaits.The film drew praise at the Telluride Film Festival, and on Monday, an article in the Hollywood Reporter began: "The prevailing wisdom was that the fest had launched yet another serious Oscar contender in director Tom Hooper and writer David Seidler's The King's Speech."
Rush confirms that the film was well received. "They were breaking into applause and rocking [in their seats] It [felt]like we were in a Noel Coward play." It screened last night at Roy Thomson Hall and plays again today at noon.
The story reveals the unlikely friendship that forms between Albert, son of King George V and Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist and the son of a brewer who work to overcome the royal's paralyzing stutter. As Albert ascends the throne to become King of England in 1936 following his brother Edward's abdication (to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson) and then prepares the country for the Second World War, their sessions together become increasingly imperative.
Logue, who insists on calling the King by his family sobriquet, Bertie, makes clear that they are equals within the confines of his tattered office. But rather than taking his student through monotonous drills, repartee and montages – featuring exercises as funny as they are functional – ensue.
To describe the historical film as a thinking person's bromance does not bristle Rush in the slightest. It seems the team also came to this realization midway through shooting. Rush paraphrases Firth talking about a pivotal scene in the film: "Well, I've done a lot of romantic comedies ... and here is the point when after they've had their fight ... this is Bertie's way of saying, 'Will you forgive me, darling.'"Rush, 59, credits Logue's thorough diaries for helping him get into character. But even as an Australian playing an Australian, he says Hooper was "a real stickler" about sounding authentic.
"If Logue had been living [in London]for a while … he probably would have sounded completely English. But for me, this is a story about an imperial-colonial divide and a class divide between the characters," says Rush, who is sporting a sport jacket, slim-fitting raw denim jeans, swirly orange and grey socks and a pair of unintentionally trendy distressed brogues. "It feels as though, if not so much in the accent, there's got to be something in the energy of the voice that comes from the big wide brown land."
Meanwhile Firth, who just celebrated his 50th birthday yesterday, showcases acting breadth even beyond his role in last year's A Single Man. There is agony, fear, duty (as father and as King) and perseverance interspersed amidst the self-deprecation and wit.
The two actors first met, albeit briefly, while shooting 1998's Shakespeare In Love. Only on the junket to New York did they get better acquainted. "We got along like a house on fire," Rush says. "Colin's hilarious. He's just the best friend. He's become a genuine friend through this whole process."
It's a process which dates back to the mid-80s for screenwriter David Seidler who wrote his initial draft for the stage before producers took it to Rush and Hooper a few years ago. According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, the Queen Mother (played by Bonham Carter) decreed she did not want an adaptation of the Abdication Crisis made during her lifetime.
As for whether Rush thinks the Royal Family will want to watch The King's Speech, set for Canadian release in early December, his eyes pop out as if asked whether God exists. "We would never know," he says. "But you do try and imagine them sitting and watching it" (Prince Charles was four years old when the King died in 1952).
Not surprisingly, the Logue family is thanked in the credits. Rush says he had the opportunity to meet Mark, Lionel's grandson who is now in his mid-40s.
Holding the rare "Triple Crown of Acting" (an Oscar, an Emmy and a Tony), Rush admits he is not yet sure whether he will be back for TIFF next year. He is currently shooting the fourth instalment of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and has a Korean western film called The Warrior's Way on its way to theatres this winter. Oh, and he happened to casually mention that he is in the midst of developing a screenplay for The Drowsy Chaperone, the Canadian musical that has become an international sensation.
When Rush occasionally stutters during our interview, it's mostly to process his thoughts. He does, however, point out there's a small slip-up in his on-screen performance of a Richard III speech. "They actually used that take," he says, in disbelief. "I was nervous because I was doing Shakespeare in front of other English actors."
Highly doubtful. And still s-s-smooth.