Colin Firth: I'm dying to come to India, my parents were born & raised there

Colin Firth, 57, indicates no signs whatsoever of what we sometimes describe as 'close to retirement age'. After he walked out of a pool wearing a wet cotton shirt many years back, Mr Darcy's drool quotient caught up with his acting skills and the two have kept pace thereafter. The Oscar-winning actor chatted on what he loves about America (but he still wants to be British), on how acting is opposed to prejudice, and why he owes it to himself to come to India.

Given that his upcoming movie, the second in the Kingsman series, straddles Anglo-American commonalities and differences in a post-Brexit and post-Trump world, we start off by reminding him that in 2010, he had said in an interview, "I don't feel planted here (Britain)," and gone on to add that "I feel very connected to America. My mother grew up there and I spent a year in high school in the U.S. Growing up, I felt almost American in lots of ways." He laughingly brushes it off with an "Oh, that's just me talking one day. I didn't feel planted that morning!"

Colin Firth with co-star Julianne Moore at the 'Kingsman: Golden Circle' premiere in London. The film releases on September 22 in India

That query seems to have been deftly passed. All right, which way would you have swayed if you had been given a choice between playing a British Kingsman or an American Statesman, we ask him. And then he starts: "It's really interesting, in some ways I'm only playing a pastiche of an Englishman, through most of my career, to be honest. I don't think England is really that accurately represented by the characters I often play. The Mr Darcys and the Harry Harts."

Colin continues, "You know, they're an idea that is familiar to everybody, but if you were to walk out of here (the hotel in London) you wouldn't see a lot of Harry Harts or Mr Darcys walking around... I think we've all adapted in each other's direction quite a bit. We're so influenced by America now, even without having lived there, as I have. You know, just growing up in the 70s, none of us thought, god I cannot wait to grow up, and put on a pinstripe suit, and join the British government, cabinet ministry or some sort of, you know... we wanted to be, I don't know, Keith Richards or John Lennon or something. Guitar and piercing in the ear, or something else. So I don't think these definitions really exist in people's daily lives very much. Given the choice, I have as much of a fascination with American mythology as anybody. It's a nice role to play up, I like the suits, I like the look, I like the manners. I think it's beautiful stuff. But I... in some ways I'm doing it always as an outsider, looking in."

Taron Egerton, Colin Firth and Pedro Pascal in a still from 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle'

As the conversation moves towards light banter about the stereotyping of the British and American characters, Colin pauses for a while, cuts off from the banter, and then makes a point - about how stereotyping and acting are essentially contradictory streams. Read into it what context you will - American, British or global: "No matter how much you're playing national stereotypes or cultural stereotypes, the actual acting profession is entirely about breaking down cultural barriers. My first drama school - it was the most obvious thing I noticed - was that people from different countries, different backgrounds, or a different sexuality... it was a real melting pot of people who, some of them felt out of place where they came from, felt unique in some way or other, either because of their race or their sexuality or something. And suddenly here we all were, forming a kind of, you know, finding a new commonality, by virtue of what we were doing. And the principal of that drama school, the first speech he gave us, was that coming into the theatre if you have any prejudices based on religion or race or sex or nationality or anything like that - well, you're in the wrong profession completely!"

Colin's 'The Legion' in 2007 with Aishwarya Rai didn't do much at the Box Office, but the story goes that when he won the Oscar for The King's Speech in 2011 and she met him after the ceremony, there was a chat about Aishwarya inviting him to come to Mumbai. Well, we've been waiting. When is he boarding that flight?

"I'm dying to come," he says, emphatically, and continues, "I would love to see her again, and I've never been to Mumbai. And given that both my parents were born in India... Yeah, born and raised, so I have this huge history with India. But I'm the only one in the family that's never actually been, for no reason of any design, it just hasn't happened yet. So I’m dying to go, I owe a visit to myself." For those who aren't familiar with this part, Colin's maternal and paternal grandparents performed overseas missionary work. In earlier interactions he’d explained that his paternal grandfather had joined the British Missionary Society. Both his parents were born and brought up in India.

As the conversation draws to a close, Colin gets up to leave, then pauses for a moment and rewinds to the first thing - the question he'd deflected then. "Having said that, funny hearing that quote back. I don't remember saying it now... I do feel very, very planted, more than ever, feel planted here, now..."

Even post Brexit - something he has freely described as a "disaster of unexpected proportions"?

"Yeah. Almost more so, frankly enough. Not just because of the value of, the sense of... you know, you kind of want to be home when things are complicated."

If Colin feels things are that complicated, the rest of us can be forgiven all our panic attacks, clearly.