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- Two Weeks Notice
- Warner Bros.
Known predominantly for starring in beloved romantic comedies, Hugh Grant has earned a reputation for behaving much differently in person than the magnetic, charming characters he plays on screen. While fans fell for him as one of the most well-known '90s romance movie actors, tabloid headlines called out his “lewd” behavior and less-than cheerful demeanor.
With so many conflicting stories, we can't help but be curious as to what he's really like. Thankfully, other actors who have worked with him throughout his extensive career have often opened up about their experiences with the notoriously cranky, but also dryly funny British actor.
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Throughout his extensive career as a comedic news reporter, Jon Stewart hosted many guests of all different backgrounds, careers, cultures, and beliefs. Of every person he ever encountered, though, he once admitted to Steven Colbert that Grant earned the title of worst guest on the show.
Stewart recalled when the Love Actually star showed up on set to promote his film, Did You Hear About the Morgans, irritated at the clips the production team chose for the piece:
[He was my least favorite guest], and we’ve had dictators on the show… He’s giving everyone sh*t the whole time, and he’s a big pain in the a**.
Grant reportedly complained, “What is that clip? It’s a terrible clip.” To which Stewart responded, “Well, then make a better f*cking movie.” While Stewart said he'd “never” have Grant as a guest again, the actor later apologized on Twitter (now X) stating:
Turns out my inner crab got the better of me with TV producer in '09. Unforgivable. J Stewart correct to give me kicking.
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- Wonka
- Warner Bros.
2'Wonka' Director Paul King Described Why He Wanted To Cast Grant As An Oompa Loompa
Although Grant made headlines for saying he “hated” filming Wonka, the film's director, Paul King, said he cast Grant precisely for his curmudgeonly qualities:
The Oompa Loompas don’t have any dialogue in the book, really, and the films, they’ve sort of got very little. But in the book they do have these very, very long songs - or they’re presented as songs, they’re poems… But they’re so funny, and I was reading them sort of trying to get a voice in my head, and they’re so sort of biting and sarcastic and scornful and incredibly funny, and Hugh’s voice just kept coming towards me.
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- Music and Lyrics
- Warner Bros.
When Grant made headlines for being caught participating in “lewd conduct” with a sex worker in 1995, Drew Barrymore reached out to the star to support him, despite having never met Grant in person. Years later the two discussed the letter, which Grant said cheered him up in a dark time, on Barrymore's show, with the host remarking:
That whole incident - I related in my own life… I think that whether it's an actor or politician or anything in-between, we expect people to be infallible, perfect, never flawed, and God forbid we do anything in our personal lives that we would like to remain personal - but we don't have that privilege at a certain point because the cat gets let out of the bag. I just had to reach out to you… I just appreciated you, and you were just the most charming human.
Barrymore, who later worked with Grant on Music and Lyrics, also revealed that the two once participated in a make-out session:
Barrymore: I don't think we've ever talked about this… I'd had a few drinks, and I walked in, and I ran into you, and instead of saying hello, I grabbed you by the collar, and I fully started kissing you…
Grant: It was really bizarre. I was very drunk as well, and I was with some very nice but not drunk studio executives from LA, and they were very surprised. Someone said, 'Oh, there's Drew Barrymore.' I get up to say hi, and then we make out for 10 minutes, and then I sit down again…
After Grant made headlines for calling her singing on Music and Lyrics “horrendous,” Barrymore insisted her co-star was a “hilarious, good human being,” elaborating:
If you know Hugh, like, that is his way of loving you… When he says that, I’m telling you, he is being absolutely funny. He doesn’t mean one negative thing about it.
Barrymore did admit it took some time to reconcile her “happy-puppy” energy with “grumpy” Grant, saying:
[I]t took me a second… I was like, oh, no. I love you. I want to love you. You’re not letting me love you. And then as I got to know him, I was like, I do love you. I love you for the real you.
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- Restoration
- Miramax Films
Grant noted to the press in 2018 that he was under the impression that Robert Downey Jr. “hated” him while working on their 1995 film, Restoration:
[He hated] me. Hated me… He took one look at me and wanted to kill me… I don't know [why]. I was so hurt.
It seems he wasn't far off, as the Iron Man star had shared his true feelings regarding Grant years earlier after filming:
I kinda think he's a jerk. Don't know, I just think he is. My personal experience with him is I think he's this kind of self-important, kind of, like, boring flash-in-the-pan [expletive] Brit…
I just thought he was a d*ck, that's all. And I still do… You know, and that could be something that has to do with me, or it could just be that not everyone in this industry is someone I'd care to hang out with.
But by 2018, he was willing to give Grant another chance, as he tweeted:
A lot has happened over two decades!… I respect how Mr. Grant has matured as an artist and voice against violations of privacy. Let’s break bread together soon @HackedOffHugh! #burythehatchet2018.
Grant also responded in kind, ending any feud once and for all.
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When asked about the set environment of About a Boy, Toni Collette admitted there were some aspects of filming she wasn't thrilled about, including Grant's apparent dissatisfaction with his career at the time:
I just felt ripped off. I was like, what? Everyone else is having fun here; I'm the suicidal lady. What the f*ck? But I knew it was a really great film. I really enjoyed working with [the directors] the Weitz brothers, with little Nick [Nicholas Hoult], who's so beautiful. I love him. He's so talented. I love watching him grow and become who he is and get better and better at what he does. He's such a sweetheart.
And with Hugh [Grant], at the time, Hugh was so jaded. He just did not enjoy filmmaking at all. He found it torturous, and now I watch him and I can tell he's fallen in love with it again. Watching him dance in Paddington 2 - honestly, when I saw that, it made me so happy.
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During an interview on his show, Graham Norton sat with Grant and Meryl Streep (who worked together on Florence Foster Jenkins) to discuss Grant's off-screen relationships with some of the actresses he'd worked with over the years. While Grant admitted that he could find something irritating about each of them - and that for some, the feeling was mutual - Streep reeled the conversation in by making a quick joke, then commiserating with him about nerves:
Grant: [Drew Barrymore] made the mistake of giving me notes. Which, how would you take that? You're acting with someone and they…
Streep: Actually, I took them very well, didn't I?… I'm kidding.
Norton: Meryl, I've heard you speaking about how you are now sort of aware of the effect you have on a cast.
Streep: Oh, yeah. I heard you say you [Grant] were terrified. You weren't really terrified, because the first day I worked with you, I forgot my lines.
Grant: I loved that. That was the highlight of my year. Here's an interesting question I've meant to ask you all these months and never dared. Are you ever nervous?
Streep: You did ask me that!… Every day you asked me that. ‘Are you nervous? Are you nervous?’ No, for the second week, I'm not nervous… But when we got up at Carnegie Hall, I was shaking. It was terrifying. And that was late in the shoot. And when I had to, you know… at the end… I was very nervous.
Grant: Well, that's not easy.
Streep: No, I get nervous. I get nervous on chat shows, chat shows are very hard.
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During the filming of Bridget Jones's Diary, director Sharon Maguire recalled Grant pitching a few “tantys”:
Hugh's sense of humor ranges between blistering - and I mean blistering - and hilariously infantile… Which made him fun and unpredictable to direct. I do remember one or two tantrums, or ‘tantys’ as he called them. But he would laugh at his own tantrummy exclamations… I never felt Hugh was entirely comfortable in an actor's skin. Acting for him wasn't a religion. I don't even think he thinks of it as a proper job. But that doesn't mean he doesn't want to be perfect at it.
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- Two Weeks Notice
- Warner Bros.
Sandra Bullock and Grant starred alongside one another in the 2002 romantic comedy Two Weeks Notice. Speaking candidly about their playful friendship, the Miss Congeniality star recalled a time that she pranked him:
Nothing is private. He cannot keep a secret. He has this thing, I think it’s called the triple X, where if his friend gives him a secret he goes ‘Is this an X, a double X or a triple X?’ Triple X meaning you cannot tell anyone…
He went through my phone once and did something horrible and we were all with the crew in a bar and he’d left his phone on the table and I just started scrolling through contacts and I think I landed on... I don’t know if I should say this but, the Earl of Albemarle…
I might have called him at night and said, ‘Ah, we need your help, Hugh is in hospital.’ So you just need to be on your guard, but it’s the most fun to be his friend…
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9Richard Curtis Tried To Stop Him Being Cast In 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'
While Four Weddings and a Funeral ended up being a breakthrough role for Grant, he said screenwriter Richard Curtis (who he'd later work with on Notting Hill and Love Actually) did “everything in his power” to stop him from taking the lead part of Charles.
Curtis admitted as much, saying he didn't initially believe that Grant's physical features could accurately represent the character:
The absolutely key thing for that film when I was writing it was that the person who was playing the lead would not be good looking. That was the absolute starting thesis of the film… So when finally we'd auditioned every single young person in the country and we were voting, me, Mike [Newell, the director] and Duncan [Kenworthy, producer], two people voted for Hugh - that was them. And I voted for someone else.
Grant recalled the audition process on The Graham Norton Show, saying:
I read the speech I had made at my brother’s wedding, which I thought would charm them but I think it slightly sickened them… I think they wanted someone rather more middle of the road and thought I was too hoity-toity posh… But I got the part in the end because I don’t think they could find anyone else!
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- Sense And Sensibility
- Sony Pictures Releasing
Emma Thompson first appeared alongside Grant in their 1995 film Sense and Sensibility. At the time, Thompson remembered her co-star being irritated at her big crying moment in the movie during his speech:
Hugh Grant was so cross… He said, ‘You’re going to cry all the way through my speech?’ I said, ‘Hugh, I’ve got to. That’s the gag. It’s funny.’ And he says, ‘Yeah, but I’m speaking.’ I said, ‘I know.’
When they worked together again years later on Love Actually, Grant was certain that their then-current project was more ridiculous than the last. According to Thompson:
Hugh came up behind me as we were walking out and said, ‘Is that the most psychotic thing we’ve ever been in?’
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- Did You Hear About the Morgans?
- Sony Pictures Releasing
While working with Grant on the set of Did You Hear About the Morgans?, Sarah Jessica Parker observed that her co-star had a habit of inflicting emotional pain on himself:
We both worry that we're bad all the time… And about things that haven't happened yet! Before he even begins, he'll give you an itemized list of how he's going to fail you: 'I'm not funny, I'm no good…' But I don't know that Hugh doesn't enjoy acting as much as he says he doesn't. He enjoys beating himself up.
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Director Marc Lawrence Recalled The First Time Grant Met His Wife
As director of three of Grant's films, Marc Lawrence has spent ample time with the Two Weeks Notice star. During an interview for Elle Magazine, he recalled the moment he introduced Grant to his wife:
When Hugh's curmudgeonly, he's funny-curmudgeonly; very much the Dorothy Parker, 'If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit next to me' school of human interaction… One of the first times that Hugh met my wife, he turned to her: ‘So, married sex, how does that work? You just have sex with the same person again and again?’
Revealing quote? Appearing on BBC's The Graham Norton Show together, Coldplay frontman Chris Martin revealed that he was a huge fan of Grant's, but joked that the actor was more interested in his partner (perhaps then-wife Gwyneth Paltrow, or girlfriend Dakota Johnson):
I'm a giant fan of Hugh, you want to see my tattoo?… I sent him fan mail as a 40 year-old-man… But every time I've ever met Hugh, he's very grumpy. And he's like, ‘Yeah, whatever, rockstar, f*ck off.’ And then starts flirting with your other half…
[The fan mail] was after A Very British Scandal, I thought, 'You know, I'm going to tell Hugh that I think he's wonderful,' because I've loved his work ever since he started, 45 years ago… I really have. And after A Very British Scandal and Paddington 2, I just wrote: ‘Hey, I love you.’ And he replied and he was very gracious.
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- The Undoing
- HBO
Grant and his Undoing co-star, Nicole Kidman, played a very believable couple, something the Big Little Lies star attributed to their long-term friendship:
[Our chemistry is palpable] because we’ve known each other since we were in our early 20s… I feel very comfortable with him and part of what it took for this to work is that this couple has to be very sort of comfortable and happy.
Kidman said during filming that Grant was adamant they shouldn't share too much physical connection, “Because after 10 years of marriage, people would never be doing that.” Grant clarified, “I just didn’t think we should do it every single scene.”
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