The Santa Barbara International Film Festival will present its Outstanding Performance of the Year Award to Colin Firth on February 13, 2010. Firth will be honored for his performance in Tom Ford’s drama "A Single Man." at the 25th edition of the festival.
"Colin Firth grabs on to the best role of his career in ‘A Single Man’ forcing us to have another look at his incredible list of films up to this point,” Roger Durling, the festival’s executive director said in a statement “He’s one of the most enduring performers working in cinema today, and we’re so thrilled that we’re honoring this most deserving actor at the peak of his game."
Firth portrays a British college professor living in Los Angeles in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his longtime partner. The movie is an adaptation of a novel by Christopher Isherwood and is directed by Ford.
Firth is most famous for his portrayal of Fitzwilliam Darcy in the BBC adaptation of Jane Austen’s "Pride and Prejudice." He went on to star in "The English Patient" and "Bridget Jone’s Diary."
Previous Outstanding Performance Award recipients include Penelope Cruz, Angelina Jolie, Helen Mirren, and Heath Ledger.
The Santa Barbara International Film Festival is set to run February 4 through February 14, 2010.
