18/01/2016

Avanzado 2 - Colin Firth on The King's Speech

Here's a listening activity on the role played by Colin Firth in The King's Speech.

Listen carefully and answer the following questions:

1. What occasion does Colin Firth mention when he met a member of the Royal Family?

2. In what ways is preparing the role of a member of the royalty different from preparing other roles?

3. What's his opinión of the monarchy?

4. What characteristic of the British Royal Family does he point out?

4. How did the death of Lady Di change the English character?


Post your answers in the comments section and I'll correct them in a few days.

2 comments:

Fabien Thibault said...

Hello,

I've found the listening quite difficult. There are many parts I haven't understood. We can appreciate that Colin firth does not have the same problem as the character whose role he plays in the film... unfortunately (?) for us.

Here are my answers to the questions:

1. He has had the opportunity to meet Prince Charles.
2. You can't easily meet a member of the Royal Family. So, to prepare the role, he could only have secondary information about them by meeting some people who had been in contact with some of them. He had to read and listen about them and use his imagination.
3. He doesn't have any particular opinion about it. In his view, it 's fact and that's all.
4. They represent well the English so as John Major or The Rolling Stones do.
5. Before Lady Di's death, nobody would talk about their emotions, whereas now English people have got used to doing it in their everyday life.

Ana Franco Cottle said...

Your answers are right, Fabien.

In number 3 he says he doesn't know much about them because he doesn't watch them closely.

In number 4, the reason why they represent England well is because England is a mixed nation and the Royal Family are immigrants: Prince Philip is Greek and the rest are Germans, he says.