Hugh Grant says the older he gets, the more he needs comfort. Well some of that comfort is coming with a complete reinvention of his movie-star persona that has resulted in a critically praised performance in his first “horror” film, Heretic.
Grant enjoys taking acting risks these days and for the past decade or so has been turning into a virtual character actor in such films as Paddington 2, Wonka, The Gentlemen and Cloud Atlas, among others. It was the latter film, playing six roles, that led the Heretic directors to cast him as a man who lures a couple of unsuspecting young women into a nightmarish world after they knock on his door to make a religious pitch. Grant is sensational in the role, taking on a whole new genre and turning it on its head.
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He joins me in conversation for this week’s new edition of my Deadline video series The Actor’s Side, where he talks about his career in ways only Hugh Grant can — and that includes describing his romantic comedy career as “falling off a cliff.” But, as he puts it, that has allowed him to free himself from a certain persona and to go in all sorts of new directions, not just on the big screen but also television in limited series projects such as The Undoing and A Very English Scandal.
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We talk about how comedy sadly is underappreciated at the Oscars, how he almost quit acting before his breakout role in 1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral came along and why writer Richard Curtis thought he was all wrong for that role. “He just couldn’t believe I could play someone having difficulty getting the girl, so we fixed that with the worst haircut and clothes choices,” he laughed. He names the hit comedy in which he says he was absolutely appalling and talks about why, at 64, he doesn’t care much anymore; the appeal of Love Actually; his return to Bridget Jones after skipping the third one; plus the surprising film of his that Quentin Tarantino told him he loved.
All this and so much more as Hugh Grant shares his “actor’s side” of life. Just click the link above to watch the video.
Join me every Wednesday during Oscar season for a new episode of The Actor’s Side.