Real imitates reel for ‘King’ Colin

When Colin Firth was preparing for his much acclaimed role in

The King’s Speech

and was in the midst of promotion rounds for

A Single Man

last year, he often found himself confused by his speech patterns, as his attempt to learn to stammer impacted the way he spoke even as he was doing other things.

He explains, “It’s about muscle memory. If you do an exercise often enough, your body will train itself to do that exercise... I was going around trying to promote

A Single Man

, and sometimes the preparation (for

The King’s Speech

) would come back to haunt me. It wasn’t really a stammer, it was my mind playing tricks on me... It’s not a psychological problem, there’s something happening in the brain. It’s physical."