Speaking of Colin Firth, he isn’t famous for his singing, but that could change when Mamma Mia! opens in July. “Yes, I sing, if you can call it that,” he tells our Nancy Mills in L.A., “although I’ve never sung an ABBA song.  They didn’t audition me.  I thought, ‘They’re being reckless here. What do they think they’re doing?’  I had to sing and dance.  They didn’t ask Patrick Swayze, John Travolta or Kevin Bacon, people who’ve had a record of being able to do all those things.  They cast me, Pierce Brosnan and Stellan Skarsgaard without asking any of us if we could sing. So I figured they didn’t care if we couldn’t.”

Firth’s song is Our Last Summer.  “It was a question of finding a voice for that particular song,” he says.  “It’s higher-pitched than my speaking voice, but it seemed to work for that song.  Benny (Andersson) and Björn (Ulvaeus), who produced it, seemed to be very pleased.  But the work isn’t finished yet.  I have to do ADR (additional dialogue recording), which does involve singing, so maybe they’ll say they don’t like it and we’ll have to do it differently.” 

Although Firth has been in a lot of successful romantic comedies, he hasn’t figured out the formula.  “Romantic comedies are probably the hardest thing to make,” he says.  “With comedy, you don’t miss by a little bit.”  He considers fellow Brit and Bridget Jones co-star Hugh Grant to be the master.  “Hugh’s judgment is so extraordinary,” Firth says.  “He doesn’t do it as if he’s falling off a log.  He’s scrupulous about it.  To him, it’s incredibly precise work.  He cares terribly about timing and nuance.  I think that’s why he does it so well.”