Last summer, Colin Firth’s emergence from a lake wearing a clinging, wet white T-shirt in Pride and Prejudice was voted as the most memorable dramatic moment in the history of British television. However, while visiting The Tonight Show on April 7, 2014 Firth said that scene which was supposedly so memorable never, ever happened. He never emerged from a lake wearing a white T-shirt in Pride and Prejudice.
“It never happened. This moment…it was voted the most memorable moment in some poll in English television history and just how memorable it is it never happened. I never got out of a lake in a wet shirt,” said Firth when shown photos of the statue honoring the moment by Jimmy Fallon.
“They’ve turned me into Ursula Andress coming out in the Bond film. A stunt guy jumped into a kind of alki-ridden pond and then it cut to me looking a little damp. They took a plastic spritzer and went, ‘Oh, look like you’ve just been for a swim.’ We played a bit of dialogue and nobody had any plans for it or anything, and then it got sort of singled out as a memorable moment. And then as time went on, it got more memorable and the rest of it got less memorable. And now 20 years later it’s the only thing that happened and they’ve added the emergence from the lake, which actually never took place.”
Watch the interview clip:
And here’s a clip of the “Lake Scene” which proves Firth’s memory is better than the television audience.
