Alamy
For Christmas fans, the name Colin “God of Sex” Frissell will ignite something in them.
The humorous character features in the iconic film Love Actually, meaning actor Kris Marshall is watched and re-watched by tens of thousands of people each year.
Speaking with New Idea, Kris says being a recognisable part of the film is something he will “never lose”.
“To be part of that canon is a form of immortality, really, in a strange way,” he tells us.
He says that he knew the film was going to be popular because of the cast list, the working title, and Richard Curtis – but didn’t expect it to have such a cultural impact.
“I knew it wouldn’t be a tiny movie, but for it to become this huge – sort of annual part of the zeitgeist sort of cultural Christmas classic – it was so surprising because there are so many Christmas movies out there,” he says, adding “but there’s only very, very few I think, that come out every Christmas and seem to sort of punch through that sort of cultural wall or membrane where they become part of the Christmas spirit”.
He says he only did “thirteen or fourteen days of filming” for the movie.
“Because the storylines were so delineated in Love Actually, everyone had their own storyline, and we only really came together as an ensemble cast for a couple of days in the airport scenes at the end,” he says.
With Love Actually boasting an incredibly impressive cast list (Hugh Grant, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson), he says early in his career he was influenced by the big stars he was “lucky enough to work with”.
“You watch them because you want to watch how they work. You’re influenced by them anyway, but also by how they behave,” he says.
“Colin Firth, I’ve worked with him twice. And it’s great as a young actor to just sort of suck up that goodness and realize that no matter how big you are, there’s no allowing for bad behaviour – or just being a dick.”
He reveals that he’s mostly had positive experiences with the “big” stars.
“One of the biggest really. I did The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons, two of the biggest stars out there. And it was humbling to be able to see how they work, but also see how they held themselves and how they treat other people, because I think that’s as important as anything,” he tells us.
“I generally have found that the bigger the star, the more humble they are, because it’s almost like inversely proportional, because they’re kind of like they don’t need to prove anything to anyone,” he adds.
Another actor of note is Judi Dench, with whom he worked on the 2001 drama film Iris, and says she is “incredible to work with”.
Kris goes on to say that the life of an actor is “quite coddled”.
“If you’re lucky enough to be well known and continually working, it’s not real life…people kind of let you get away with things as well, which is quite kind of nice when you want to sometimes but also you can abuse it, I think, or people can abuse it,” he reveals, adding he’s seen it happen but “won’t name any names”.
Kris is currently playing DI Humphrey Goodman in British mystery series Beyond Paradise.
Beyond Paradise S3 is available to stream exclusively on a bigger and better BritBox.
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