Actor Colin Firth, pictured, was reportedly ‘horrified’ by Brexit and believes that it ‘does not have a single positive aspect’
British actor Colin Firth has become an Italian citizen after reportedly being left ‘horrified’ by Brexit.
Firth, who is married to environmentalist Livia Giuggioli, says he has become a dual citizen and that his wife is applying for British nationality. His children are both dual citizens.
The couple live with their two sons — Luca, 16, and Matteo, 13 — in Chiswick, West London, but also have a holiday home in the Umbria region of Italy.
In a statement, the 57-year-old said: ‘With some of the uncertainty around, we thought it sensible that we should all get the same.’
A source previously revealed to the Daily Mail: ‘Colin was horrified by Brexit and is worried about the consequences.’
Firth began to learn Italian after he started courting Livia and speaks the language fluently.
In an interview with an Austrian newspaper last autumn, he said of Brexit: ‘For me this is a disaster of unexpected proportions. Brexit does not have a single positive aspect.
‘Many colleagues, including Emma Thompson, are, like me, enthusiastic Europeans, and we still cannot believe it.’
Despite growing up in the picture-postcard village of Grayshott, said to have inspired sets for the BBC’s Lark Rise To Candleford, Firth has said he does not consider himself rooted in Britain.
‘I don’t feel planted here,’ he said in 2010. ‘I feel very connected to America. My mother grew up there and I spent a year in high school in the U.S. Growing up, I felt almost American in lots of ways.’
Firth, who is married to environmentalist Livia Giuggioli, says he has become a dual citizen and that his wife is applying for British nationality. The couple are pictured together above
The actor was a supporter of the EU-fanatic Liberal Democrats and appeared in a 2010 party political broadcast opposite Nick Clegg.
But he reportedly later withdrew his backing for the Lib Dems after their U-turn on student tuition fees, which he described as ‘profoundly disillusioning’.
Firth will be allowed to retain his British passport because this country — as well as Italy — permits dual citizenship.
Other EU states, such as Germany and Spain, require people to give up their foreign nationality before they can become citizens.