Eighteen years after Firth made millions of women swoon by climbing out of a lake with wet clothes clinging to his torso, his brooding character is returning to the BBC in an adaptation of Death Comes To Pemberley.
Based on a murder mystery novel by PD James, the series tells of events after Jane Austen’s Pride And Prejudice creations Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet have been married for six years.
Rhys, a 38-year-old Welshman, is already an emerging star in the US, where he plays an undercover KGB officer living in Washington in drama series The Americans.
But he admits he faces a huge “challenge” in competing with the memory of Firth, whose fame soared after he took the role.
Rhys said: “Exciting as it is, one of the challenges of a part such as Darcy are the comparisons that will be drawn to those who have institutionalised.
“The beauty of Pemberley is that it is an entirely new and different Darcy six years on.
“And also, I don’t have to appear from a lake in a white shirt and breeches.”
Elizabeth will be played by Anna Maxwell Martin, 34, who has won two best actress Baftas for her performances in Bleak House and Poppy Shakespeare.
The series will be filmed in Yorkshire next month.
In PD James’s story, Darcy, his wife and their two sons are preparing to host a ball at Pemberley when Elizabeth’s sister Lydia bursts in to say her husband, the ne’er-do-well George Wickham, has been murdered.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/4 ... w-Mr-Darcy
Anthea: I am really looking forward to this - nobody could ever replace Colin Firth
