Colin Firth thinks it's odd that he's suddenly making so many sequels, including Bridget Jones' Baby and the upcoming Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! And it's not a spoiler to say that his character Harry is back for the sequel Kingsman: The Golden Circle, even though he was shot in the head in the 2015 original. 

Colin Firth in 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle'Colin Firth in 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle'

"I seem to have gone into the sequel phase of my life," Firth laughs, "which I guess is maybe a sign of age. Your life coming back as acid reflux! But I suppose I like to look at it this way: if we're doing sequels, somebody must have enjoyed the first one."

When the original film became a breakout hit, he says he was pretty sure they'd figure out a way to bring him back. "I thought, 'You're not going to do it without me!'" he laughs. "Which is probably what every Game of Thrones and Walking Dead actor thinks before the axe falls."

Watch the trailer for 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle' here:


Firth doesn't think writer-director Matthew Vaughn was too worried about coming up with a good reason why Harry was able to get back in action. "I think he just thought that this is the team that works, and these are the relationships he wants to work with again," First says, "so we must find a way."

He's also rather amused to be back in another action movie at the age of 57. "I definitely would not have seen this coming," he says. "There's something quite strange about me being an action star! I thought if that was ever going to happen it would have been 30 years ago. I did not expect to be over 50 and doing a film that was so physically challenging. I was the kid in school who was picked last for the rugby team, so to be thrown in again with these stunt guys who are all world champion athletes, that first month of training was not just painful but emasculating."

More: Read our review of 'Kingsman: The Golden Circle'

One extra bonus on this sequel was getting the chance to work with Elton John, who has a significant side role. "It was a wonderful, wonderful experience," Firth says. "Often when you're shooting a scene, you hope the effect of the scene is going to be fun and extraordinary, but the actual work that you're doing seems to be rather technical and drawn out. That wasn't. That actually was a pinch-yourself moment, just in the doing of it, because I had him there."