One word of warning: the potential for spoilers exists within the piece…like, to the point where Firth asks during one of his answers “not to turn this into spoilers when you write about it.” But, look, if you don’t want to know, then don’t read it. But given that the original novel was published in 1974, followed by the TV miniseries in 1979, it’s not as if you haven’t had plenty of time to absorb this information already…

Journalist: Are you a fan of the espionage and spy films?

Colin Firth: I like the good ones, yeah.

J: Do you have any favorites?

CF: No, not really. [Gesturing toward the journalist sitting next to him.] We talked about this, actually, him and I. He had to help me out. [Laughs.] No, I’m one of those people where, if you say, “Tell me what your favorite music is,” I can’t think of any music in the world. So that’s a difficult question. You throw something at me, I’ll tell you whether I like it or not. But, yeah, I’m a fan.

J: Well, we’re all like that. You ask me, and I’d do the same thing.

CF: Yeah, I know. Nothing is more guaranteed to draw a blank, I’m afraid.

J: In the film, we were trying to figure out exactly who the people up in that big office were.

CF: [Uncertainly] Oh, I hope I can help…

J: What does Bill Haydon (Firth’s character) do?

CF: He…right, okay, I’m going to get stuck here, so don’t trust me too hard on this. [Laughs.] He runs London Station, which means that, basically, he’s in charge of operations in the home base. From the home base. And I…don’t quite know how that configures, because MI-6, as I understand it, technically does not exist. Nobody acknowledges it. It’s so secret that there’s no such thing. And then MI-5, I guess they call it Military Intelligence Five, but Six, because it’s to do with foreign operations, and there aren’t supposed to be any… [Clears throat.] So that’s the zone that they’re in. So he’s one of the very, very senior guys, and very much a candidate to take over the whole thing.

J: Those are all senior guys up there, right?

CF: Yeah, those are the five guys.

J: How would you describe your character without giving anything away?

CF: Can’t. [Laughs.]

J: I loved that you didn’t telegraph it at all, but…how do you carry the knowledge (about your character) throughout your performance without giving it away?

CF: Well, it’s a tricky one in a way. I mean, some people would say that they did know. I mean, it’s obviously not a state secret, because the book’s been there for 40 years, and there was a TV series. So we’re not entirely dependent on not knowing. Because the story, in the end, is about much more than that. The thing is, everybody who is featured has some sort of alternate life, another agenda, whether it’s some sort of broken relationship or some guilt or disappointment. They’re all wearing a mask for one reason or another. And I think the beauty of the film is that we get that revealed in little hints. I think in a way it’s much more a personal, emotional story about the kind of things that people hope for and are disappointed in, and about loneliness and the failure to find trust or intimacy, than it is about who did it. Smiley has an attractive wife who will betray him constantly, and he will constantly forgive her and constantly take her back. And I think he feels that way about…his institution and about his country. You know? He has this endless faith in what the value system should be, and the romance that he bestows on it…he will stay committed to that no matter how often he is disappointed. And I think that is accurate in his marriage.

J: Haydon had (a relationship with) a boy and a girl in the film, so…

CF: [Laughs.] Haydon doesn’t care too much. He cares enough to tie the ends up. You can argue that Haydon’s the most mysterious character in a way. The motif of the Russian doll…what do you call those, when it’s a doll within a doll within a doll?

J: Nesting dolls.

CF: That was actually used in the TV series as the logo, in the opening credits. And that’s drawn from a passage in the book, where Smiley, having just interviewed Haydon at the end, he speculates…he spends about three pages trying to guess what Haydon’s motives are and what he’s really made of. And he compares him to one of those dolls. You get an interpretation, you look inside, and there seems to be another one, and then there seems to be another inside that. Is he motivated by genuine altruistic political ideology, or is he just a narcissistic sociopath? Is it all about him? He thinks he’s Lawrence of Arabia. He wants to drag the ignorant and afflicted out of the darkness and lead them into the light and into prosperity. But he also just wants it to be about him. He’s the guy leading on the light charge, you know? So you can ponder that forever. I’m trying to answer your question, but…he’s affectatious. He wants to convince us that he’s a bohemian of some sort. He’s powerful and bright, forceful and charismatic enough to break some rules. He’s not a swaggering non-conformist, but just enough to…it’s little grace notes. This is why when I read it…it’s not described in terms of what he wears and everything, but I just said, “Well, he paints, let’s put him in the tweeds so he’s not as city-business-y as the others. And let’s give him red socks. And a flowery pocket handkerchief or something.” Just to say a little flamboyance and a twist.

J: But in a way, by betraying others, he stays true to himself.

CF: If you believe his ideology is as sincere as he says it is, yes. This is precisely what he says – and, actually, it’s a line I have to say because the script was, brilliantly so, pared right down. But the first draft of the script didn’t have the line about having to choose a side, and we didn’t ever really find out what Haydon’s motives were. And I said, “Well, listen, I don’t want to make it about Haydon and what he did and why, but I do think it adds complexity to the universe of that film.” Because that’s not an uncommon point of view. Certainly of that generation, during the period of Communism, where it wasn’t…loyalty to an ideology or a cause took precedent very comfortably for a lot of people. Loyalty to your nationality, what your government tells you to do. And if you profoundly disapproved of your government or your country, then I think some people did feel a loyalty to ally themselves with one that they approved of. And he says that. “Yeah, I had to pick a side, and the west had become so ugly.” And in the book, he goes into greater and greater detail about that. He deconstructs it. And he certainly wouldn’t have been the only one.

Burgess, Mclean, Philby, Blunt…they’re not famous names to anyone who’s not British, but these were spies of that generation who…again, I can trust all of you not to turn this into spoilers when you write about it, because when applied to Haydon, it gives too much away. But these men shared secrets with Soviets for reasons which were not to do with self-advancement or finance. They just did it. And they were all like Haydon: educated in the elite system, I think most of them went to Eaton, or if not, Oxbridge. There was an above average number of gay guys among them. They were considerably about average intelligence. And privileged. And you have to ask, “Why?” Why would privileged people, who are taking all the benefits of the decadent Western capitalist society, throw it all away for giving secrets to a system which is to do with egalitarianism and is anti-capital and anti-wealth?

A very interesting piece of symmetry, just from my own personal point of view: the first play and film I ever did was called “Another Country,” which was entirely based on Guy Burgess’s formative years, asking, “Why would someone from a privileged school like that become a spy?” And it was, in the theoretical world of this writer, it was connected to his homosexuality and to the era in which he grew up. The 1930s, during which communism could be far more comfortably idealized. We didn’t know about Stalin’s purges. The Spanish Civil War was raging, people were flocking to fight the angels or the devils, however they saw them. And the fact that the Burgess character, if you like, who’s called Guy Bennett, the fact that he’s gay means that he feels that he has to hide a lot. And he feels that he has to use subterfuge to conduct his personal life. And, therefore, the school becomes a sort of training ground to become a spy. And it also becomes the place where you most learn to want to screw the system. So that story ends the character saying, “You know what? To hell with them all. I will take their privileges, but I’ll be undermining them and I’ll be screwing them at the same time.”

J: Could your character exist now?

CF: I can’t imagine it. Not in those configurations. I can’t imagine somebody…I think those figures, the components aren’t the same. That generation of pre-WWII, pre-Soviets elite English schoolboys who were weaned while the British Empire was still very much alive as an idea. And so was Communism. And those things made very convenient polarities in people’s political minds. Now, those polarities have disappeared, so those components are gone. So it’s very hard to see how anybody…how exactly the same kinds of people would do those same kinds of things for the same reasons.  I think it’s pretty unlikely.

J: There’s also the idea of someone from a privileged background who’d like to share his wealth.

CF: Now, I think that is possible. Absolutely. I was listening to a guy on TV…he didn’t come from a privileged background. He came from a poor background, but he became a successful lawyer, and he gave it all up for politicking. This guy was on C-SPAN this morning, he was talking about Occupy, and he’s part of it. He just said, “No, I’ve thrown that away, because I think it’s far more important to think about how we should live our lives, that they aren’t just to do with personal gain and personal achievement.” And he’s a highly educated guy who had the capacity to…who I think did earn a lot of money, but he decided to go a different way. So I think there are variations on it, just in terms of people giving things up. Having said that, I’m not going to idealize the likes of, for instance, Kim Philby, on whom I think Haydon is largely based or at least inspired by. And I know that le Carré would not want that man idealized. le Carré was an active intelligence officer at the time they killed Philby. He was active, and…I know this from interviews that le Carré’s done – it’s not anything I’ve been privy to, that I’ve heard personally [Laughs.] – but, yeah, you know, he’s just a very harsh judge of Philby. He’s very clear on the fact that Philby’s treachery cost lives. And I think we’d probably question the purity of his ideals as well. So it’s complex. And I wouldn’t say that Burgess, Mclean, Philby, or Blunt were motivated by exactly the same things. Burgess seemed to be to be a more feckless creature than Mclean, who I think was more serious politically. They just happened to have come up through the ranks together.

J: How familiar with the book were you?

CF: Not at all.

J: Have you read it since?

CF: Oh, now I have, yes. Several times.

J: But not back then?

CF: No.

J: And the TV series?

CF: I don’t know whether I saw it. It’s one of those things that’s so present in one’s life that you know it whether you’ve ever seen it or not. I mean, I probably saw some episodes, and it was…whatever you were watching on TV at the time was so constantly being traded that you were being aware of it all the time. And then people talked about it all the time. So it had a huge presence and a huge impact. You know, I remember at one point not being able to remember if I’d ever actually read “Great Expectations.” [Laughs.] Or if I’d only ever seen films and TV adaptations and had it read to me at school in class. Had I ever actually at any point sat down and read it? But I could probably take you through that story in great detail…and I don’t think I read it! And le Carré’s a bit like one of these cultural reference points. When the Berlin Wall came down, I think most people were less concerned about what would happen to the political geography of Europe than they were about what would happen to John le Carré. [Laughs.] Actually, I think some of his best work is post-Cold-War stuff.

J: Having read the book finally, are you impressed that it was pared down to just over two hours?

CF: Absolutely. Well, yeah, I think what the film has done – and I think this is why he has endorsed it so heartily – is, instead of trying to capture every prosaic detail of the whodunit and all the strands, it basically focuses in on what the experience would be like, to have put your trust in an institution like that and to be in that world, where it’s all you’ve got. Because you can’t put trust in your personal life if you’re a spy. You can’t share that. You know, I think that I do know…I’ve heard that there was a response from a group of spies who saw this film, and there’s a line that Tom Hardy has, where he says, “I’ll do this one condition: I’m out. I want a family. I don’t want to end up like you lot.” And apparently it got a big laugh…of painful recognition. [Laughs.] And I think it’s as much about that as anything else. It’s about loneliness – male, mostly – and isolation, and I think it’s to do with what that feels like, rather than chasing down all the storylines.

Everyone has taken that soul-sucking job in order to pay the bills. And while we proles may tease them for living the glamorous life, actors probably take that job more often than anyone, since they never know when the next job is going to come. (Case in point: Michael Madsen told us that he categorizes the movies he’s made as “good,” “bad,” and “unwatchable.”) Putting this theory to the test, we scoured the filmographies of this year’s nominees in the acting categories, looking for movie titles that screamed ‘bad idea.,’ and we were not disappointed with what we found. Jesse Eisenberg, for example, did a TV movie called “Lightning: Fire from the Sky,” which will be the main feature at our next Bad Movie night. Here are ten other films that this year’s candidates would probably prefer remained unseen.

Colin Firth (Best Actor, “The King’s Speech”)

Movie: Femme Fatale (1991)
IMDb rating: 4.6
The plot: An English artist-turned park ranger falls for and marries a stranger, only for her to disappear days later. As he learns more about his wife, he gets deeper and deeper into the Los Angeles underworld looking for clues that will lead him to her.
Firth’s character: Joe Prince, the aforementioned artist/ranger.
How bad is it?: You may not see the ending coming, but that is about the only thing this movie has going for it. Armed with one of the most awkward love scenes we’ve seen in ages, this movie does not gel on any level, using mental illness as a means of providing psychological depth, not to mention Acting!, with that last word ideally spoken like Jon Lovitz. Firth is actually passable here, given the material, and Danny Trejo pops up as a tattoo artist. But you can bet that when someone assembles a clip show of Firth’s finest moments, this movie will not make the cut.

Jeremy Renner (Best Supporting Actor, “The Town”)

Movie: National Lampoon’s Senior Trip (1995)
IMDb rating: 4.9
The plot: A group of delinquent kids takes a bus trip to Washington D.C. to tell the President first-hand what is wrong with the education system, something a couple of corrupt politicians intend to exploit.
Renner’s character: Mark “Dags” D’agostino, a slacker stoner. With pierced ears.
How bad is it?: Put it this way: the first actor listed in the credits is Matt “Max Headroom” Frewer, and the movie’s few laughs come from Tommy Chong as the drug-addled bus driver. On the “National Lampoon” movie scale, this one lands somewhere in between “Class Reunion” and “Van Wilder 2: The Rise of Taj.”

James Franco (Best Actor, “127 Hours”)

Movie: Whatever It Takes (2000)
IMDb rating: 5.2
The plot: Geek wants unattainable babe, jock wants geek’s unattainable neighbor friend next door. Geek and jock strike deal to help each other out, even though it’s clear that neither couple belongs together.
Franco’s character: Chris Campbell, the jock, natch.
How bad is it?: It’s not bad so much as it’s dull. It’s bad too, but mostly dull. Jodi Lyn O’Keefe is a lovely physical specimen, but she has the screen presence of a black hole, while Franco is stuck doing a character similar to Andrew Keegan’s Joey from “10 Things I Hate About You,” which came out the previous year. No one here has much personality, not even the geek’s even geekier friends (played by “Breaking Bad’s” Aaron Paul and Tom Hanks’ son Colin). There is a reason this movie only made about half of its $15 million budget back at the box office.

Nicole Kidman (Best Actress, “Rabbit Hole”)

Movie: BMX Bandits (1983)
IMDb rating: 4.8
The plot: Three teenagers looking to make some quick money unwittingly steal walkie talkies from a crime lord who needs the walkies for a Big Score.
Kidman’s character: Judy, the plucky girl who loves happy endings. And BMX bikes.
How bad is it?: The first half is actually pretty decent. The kids’ dialogue is snappy and the three leads – one of whom, no joke, is named Angelo D’Angelo – are all quite likable. The second half, however, is just ridiculous, as the kids are chased by two Keystone cop-type goons. The director does some interesting POV shots, but he scores every bike jump with a synthesized swoosh. Also, Kidman’s bike double is clearly a dude.

John Hawkes (Best Supporting Actor, “Winter’s Bone”)

Movie: Future-Kill (1985)
IMDb rating: 3.5
The plot: A group of frat boys go into New York City to pull a prank, only to by hunted by a homicidal mutant.
Hawkes’ character: The Light Man, though we have no idea where this name comes from since has neither lights nor cigarettes. He’s just a kid dancing at a fraternity party. But what is that robe thing he’s wearing?
How bad is it?: Sweet Jesus, is this movie bad. The tone is all over the place, the story steals from roughly half a dozen other movies, and the title makes no sense, as there is nothing futuristic about it. As many people have pointed out, the best thing about this movie is the poster that H.R. Giger designed for it, though even that poster makes no sense in context with the movie.

Michelle Williams (Best Actress, “Blue Valentine”)

Movie: Timemaster (1995)
IMDb rasting: 3.8
The plot: A time traveling boy must stop an alien race from manipulating humans into blowing up their own planet.
Williams’ character: Anna. And that’s all we know.
How bad is it?: As you can tell, we weren’t able to actually get our hands on this one (the movie’s all over the torrent sites, but those things make our computers itchy), and while that would normally be grounds for exclusion from a piece like this, the trailer is just too ridiculous to pass up. Looking like some strange, cheap hybrid of “The Quick & the Dead” and Barry Sonnenfeld’s “Wild, Wild West,” “Timemaster” blends post-apocalyptic goons with sci-fi gadgetry and, for some reason, backflipping skiers. And apparently the plot has something to do with virtual reality, which was B-movie law in 1995. And the only thing that makes this trailer more awesome is watching it en Espanol. Thank you, God.

Mark Ruffalo (Best Supporting Actor, “The Kids Are All Right”)

Movie: Mirror, Mirror II: Raven Dance (1994)
IMDb rating: 3.9
The plot: A girl and her mentally challenged brother live in an orphanage, and the girl discovers that a mysterious mirror is capable of granting wishes, but at a price (dunt dunt duuuuuunh).
Ruffalo’s character: Christian, a benevolent boy in a puffy shirt who may or may not be a physical manifestation of the mirror itself.
How bad is it?: As horror movies go, this is as scare-free as they come, and the subtitle “Raven Dance” doesn’t really apply, except for the fact that a raven occasionally comes out of the mirror, and the lead actress occasionally dances. Ruffalo doesn’t fare too badly as the mysterious Christian, but the movie around him makes no sense. Ruffalo would return for a third “Mirror Mirror”…as a different character, which must be a recurring theme for this series since William Sanderson (“True Blood”) did the same thing in the first two installments.

Jeff Bridges (Best Actor, “True Grit”)

Movie: The Yin and Yang of Mr. Go (1970)
IMDb rating: 3.9
The plot: James Mason is Y.Y. Go, a half-Mexican, half-Chinese (ha ha ha ha!) power broker who blackmails an American ballistics expert into giving up blueprints for a cutting-edge weapon, but has a sudden change of heart.
Bridges’ character: Nero Finnegan, an aspiring writer and draft dodger who is lured into doing seedy work for Go for some quick cash.
How bad is it?: Did we mention that the movie was narrated by Buddha? Man oh man, is this gonzo. Written and directed by Burgess Meredith (yep, the Penguin himself), the movie actually delves into some pretty taboo stuff for the time (Bridges seduces the ballistics expert, and his girlfriend is molested by a female cop), but at the same time, it is completely scattershot. Bridges complains that his girlfriend is late, even though he has three hookers in his apartment. The government’s plan to get close to Finnegan is to have an agent pose as a publisher who’s interested in his work, as if that isn’t at all suspicious. The is one loony movie, but on the plus side, there are several shots of Irene Tsu’s perky breasts, so it has that going for it. That, and its fabulous “Age of Aquarius”-type theme song.

Helena Bonham Carter (Best Supporting Actress, “The King’s Speech”

Movie: Francesco (1989)
IMDb rating: 6.0
The plot: A group of Franciscans attempt to document the life of St. Francis of Assisi, a wealthy playboy who became a saint.
Carter’s character: Chiana, the young lass who tries to understand his need to live the life of a possessionless pauper.
How bad is it?: Well, Rourke doesn’t have an English accent, and his hair looks like he just shot an episode of “Miami Vice” (we’re pretty sure we saw a tattoo as well, and an earring), but Carter does her part to lend an air of legitimacy to it all, even if it’s rather ponderous. And while her appearance is probably historically accurate, you have to think that Carter winces in horror whenever she sees pictures of herself from this movie. Especially those manbrows. And check out that synthtastic score by Vangelis!

Amy Adams (Best Supporting Actress, “The Fighter”)

Movie: Psycho Beach Party (2000)
IMDb rating: 6.0
The plot: A ’60s surf movie parody where an atypical teenage girl wants to learn how to surf while a serial killer lurks among them.
Adams’ character: Marvel Ann, a shallow harpy looking for an MRS degree and will use all of her feminine wiles to get it.
How bad is it?: We picked this one solely for its title, expecting it to be all camp but no wit. And dog our cats, but this one turned out to be pretty awesome. Seriously, we’re not sure how this one did not appear on our radar earlier, considering it has a regular from “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (Nicholas Brendon), Los Straitjackets as the band during the luau scene, and Thomas Gibson (!) playing a beatnik rhyming version of The Dude. And if that weren’t enough, Lauren Ambrose plays not one, not two, but three characters, and they’re all great. (We can’t tell you how excited we are that she’s in the upcoming season of “Torchwood.”) Ah, but right, this piece is supposed to be about Adams. She gets to show off her dance moves, and her hourglass figure; what’s not to love? She’s made much worse movies than this, that’s for sure. Take “Leap Year,” for example.