Statue of Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy rises from lake

[July 09, 2013]  LONDON (AP) --  It's Colin Firth, but not as we know him. He's 12 feet (3.7 meters) tall and made of fiberglass.

A statue of brooding Mr. Darcy, the character played by Firth in "Pride and Prejudice" was installed Monday in London's Serpentine lake.

The figure shows Darcy emerging from the water in a soaked shirt, recreating a scene from the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen's novel.

The scene helped turn Firth into a sex symbol and is regularly voted among Britain's most memorable TV moments.

One of the sculptors, Toby Crowther, said the work took the lake scene as a starting point but also drew on other depictions of Austen's romantic hero.

The statue, which shows Darcy from the waist up, was placed amid the swans and swimmers in the Hyde Park lake to promote Drama, a new TV channel dedicated to British programs.

It is scheduled to go on display at several locations before being installed in a lake in Lyme Park, northwest England, where the scene was filmed. It will remain there until February.

[Associated Press]

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