Colin Firth on Playing Dr. Jim Swire in 'Lockerbie: A Search for Truth'

In the new Peacock limited series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, actor Colin Firth (The Staircase) takes on the challenge of portraying Dr. Jim Swire, the grieving father and tireless advocate for justice in the aftermath of the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 243 passengers, 16 crew members and 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground.

For 24 years, Swire took point as the spokesman for the coalition, UK Families Flight 103, which expressed the interests of those who lost family in the bombing. As such, Swire became a thorn in the side of the U.K. and U.S. governments, lambasting their response to the tragedy and bringing to light the lax security of airports in both countries post-bombing. 

While Swire's actions were bold and defiant, the man himself was actually very reserved and unassuming, a countenance that Firth captures with remarkable fidelity in the series. 

At a recent Sky One and Peacock press conference for the series, Firth was somber as he reflected on how potent the event still feels to citizens of the United Kingdom. “It’s 35 years now, and it's impossible to imagine that that's how long,” he said. “It feels far more immediate than that.”

Because of that emotional immediacy, Firth said when he was first sent the script for Lockerbie: A Search for Truth, he responded to how it catered to the emotional stories of Jim and Jane Swire and the other families involved in the aftermath. 

“It had an emotional impact,” the actor said of his initial read. “It was less the legal investigation-thriller element of it and far more how it just made me feel. How it made me feel seeing this representation of Jim and Jane in their family and this journey.”

Firth said that he was moved by the “twists and turns” of the case and how many times Swire pursued one route of investigation for it to be diverted to some other path of discovery. “It's very tempting when you feel passionate about something to want to stay the course to have this cherished belief maintained, and then everything must surely conform to that,” he said of what Swire faced in the investigation. “He didn't do that. He let evidence and facts speak to him, [even] if that meant profoundly changing course. That really, really struck me.”

In preparation for the role, Firth met with Jim and Jane Swire in their home to get to know them as people and build trust with them. “You can't meet them without feeling a warmth and respect,” he said. “Then realizing what a huge thing to live up to [that] this was going to be because you always feel a bit out of your depth when you start a job, but this really felt way out of my depth.”

In the end, Firth said their guidance, plus watching actual footage of Swire and reading The Lockerbie Bombing: A Father's Search for Justice (which the series is based on and was co-written by Swire and Peter Biddulph in 2021), helped him build his approach to the character with purpose. 

“I found that Jim got straight to the point,” he said of their conversations. “He started to ask me questions. There wasn't a lot of small talk before we were into it. Then, it wasn't all about this. I mean, he also made me laugh. We did talk about other things. But the alertness and [his] intellectual agility made me feel like I really kind of had to catch up and keep up. I suppose, looking back on it, that must have gone somewhere into [my] hard drive. This vigilance, this readiness, to respond to what he's hearing, to new ideas, to new thoughts, it was very apparent in that first meeting.”

All episodes of Lockerbie: A Search for Truth are streaming on Peacock starting Thursday, January 2, 2025.