Happy Birthday! Colin Firth Turns 56 Years Old Today

Today is Colin Firth's birthday!

The award-winning actor landed his first acting gig in 1984, playing PC Franklin in Crown Court, a television courtroom drama. In that same year, he landed his first professional stage role in the 1983 West End production of Julian Mitchell's Another Country, and oddly enough, his big screen debut came one year later in the feature film adaptation of that very same play, though not playing the same role.

While Firth continued to find steady work over the next ten years, it wasn't until he landed the role of Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC's six-episode Pride and Prejudice mini-series (1995) that he started to become a household name.

Building off of that success, Firth nabbed leading or key roles in more high-profile projects, such as The English Patient (1996), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), and Mamma Mia! (2008).

Firth has always been considered a talented actor, even earning an Emmy nomination for his work in Conspiracy (2001), but it took playing King George VI, a man desperate to overcome his speech impediment to make an important wartime speech, in Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (2010) to get him the recognition he deserved, winning him a BAFTA, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Academy Award for Best Actor.

As for our community, Firth showed us an awesome and very surprising new side when he portrayed super-spy Harry Hart/Galahad in Matthew Vaughn's 2015 comic book movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service. Seeing Firth getting into a brutal barroom brawl with a bunch of thugs and shooting, stabbing, and manhandling his way through a hate-filled congregation was a breath of fresh air.

Even though his character died in the first film, Firth will reprise the role for the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which will be released on June 16, 2017.

Born in Grayshott, Hampshire, England, Firth turns 56 today. Happy Birthday, Colin Firth.