Actor and wife split after 22 years

British actor Colin Firth and his Italian wife on Friday announced they had split up after 22 years of marriage.

Firth, 59, known for playing stiff-upper-lipped Englishmen in films like “Love Actually,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and a television version of “Pride and Prejudice,” married documentary film producer Livia Giuggioli in 1997.

“Colin and Livia Firth have separated. They maintain a close friendship and remain united in their love for their children. They kindly ask for privacy. There will be no further comment,” representatives of the couple said in a joint statement.

Firth, one of Britain’s most beloved actors, won an Oscar and a Golden Globe in 2011 for his lead performance as a stuttering King George VI in “The King’s Speech.”

The couple’s decision to split follows an unpublicized separation several years ago, during which Livia Firth in a 2018 statement said that she had had a relationship with an Italian journalist. The couple later reunited.

Colin and Livia Firth have two sons.