\n<\/p>\n
He has 10,000 a year \u2014 and a smoldering gaze. There have been countless Jane Austen film and TV adaptations over the years<\/a>, starring countless actors as the handsome men who steal the hearts of the books\u2019 heroines.<\/p>\n Fitzwilliam Darcy, arguably Austen\u2019s most famous hero, made his debut in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice<\/em>. The first film adaptation of the classic novel premiered in 1940, but it would be another 50 years before Colin Firth<\/strong><\/a> broke hearts in what is arguably the most memorable Darcy performance of all time.<\/p>\n The Oscar winner played the wealthy Englishman in the BBC\u2019s 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice<\/em> opposite Jennifer Ehle<\/strong> as Elizabeth Bennet. While the 327-minute series is very faithful to Austen\u2019s novel, one of the most famous scenes is not in the novel: Darcy taking a swim in the pond<\/a> at his residence, Pemberley.<\/p>\n In 2013, U.K. viewers voted the scene the most memorable scene in British TV history, surpassing iconic moments from Doctor Who<\/em>, Downton Abbey<\/em><\/a> and Sherlock<\/em>. That same year, a 12-foot sculpture of Firth as Darcy was erected in a lake in London\u2019s Hyde Park to promote the launch of a new U.K. TV channel. The artwork went on tour around the country before taking up permanent residence in Lyme Park, where the original scene was filmed.<\/p>\n As Firth noted during a 2014 interview, however, fans often misremember that scene as showing him exiting the lake while dripping wet in a sheer blouse \u2014 but that never happened. Darcy goes for the swim in his white shirt, but when Elizabeth runs into him later, he\u2019s already gotten out off-camera and started to dry off.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s been terrorizing the country. Attack of the 50-foot miniseries actor,\u201d Firth quipped of the statue during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/em><\/a>. \u201cI never got out of a lake in a wet shirt. \u2026 They\u2019ve turned me into Ursula Andress<\/strong> coming out [of the water in Dr. No<\/em>]. A stunt guy jumped into a kind of algae-ridden pond and then it cut to me looking a little damp.\u201d<\/p>\n After Matthew Macfadyen<\/strong><\/a> played the same role in Joe Wright\u2019s 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice<\/em><\/a>, he and Firth had a conversation about the \u201cweird pressure\u201d that comes with playing such a beloved part. \u201cI played him like a sort of grumpy adolescent, probably because I felt quite grumpy because I was scared,\u201d the Succession<\/em><\/a> star told Vanity Fair<\/em> in May 2022, explaining that the duo chatted about their past roles while making the film Operation Mincemeat<\/em>.<\/p>\n Firth, for his part, was impressed that Macfadyen conveyed so much emotion in a vastly shorter amount of time. (The 2005 version is only 127 minutes long.)<\/p>\n \u201cI think what was masterful about Matthew\u2019s interpretation was that he did manage to tell that whole story in a more condensed form,\u201d the King\u2019s Speech<\/em> actor told the outlet. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s very difficult because it\u2019s so dependent on a slow reveal.\u201d<\/p>\n