Hugh Grant is in his villain era! He's been talking to Melissa Nathoo about new film Heretic, getting less trusting in his "old age" and how he wishes he'd had more varied roles earlier in his career. Report by Nathoom. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00How are you? It's really nice to meet you.
00:03You too.
00:04I feel like I've done this so many years and I've never had the pleasure,
00:07so this is lovely.
00:09You're bringing us the charm that we all know and love in this film,
00:12but weaponised in the best possible way.
00:15It just made me really glad that I don't have a basement at home
00:18because I don't think I could have gone home afterwards.
00:20I was so tense after watching this.
00:22Did this character push you in ways
00:25that hasn't really been done before, would you say?
00:28Because we have seen you doing these more villainous kind of characters,
00:32but I feel like this is something just that little bit different.
00:36Yeah, I hope it's different.
00:38I've played some pretty bad guys recently,
00:41but this guy's a monster,
00:44but hopefully an entertaining monster
00:49in that he believes he's fascinating and amusing.
00:56I modelled him kind of on those professors or teachers you get
00:59who think they're one of the cool ones, one of the funny ones.
01:02We all know that, yeah.
01:04So that gave me a chance to try and be funny
01:08at the same time as being terrifying,
01:10and I hoped that what was scary was doubly scary
01:13because it was coming out of someone who thought he was just having fun.
01:16And I'm really glad for those little moments of light relief
01:19because you do find yourself so tense at some times.
01:22It actually is a nice welcome relief.
01:24So that was great.
01:26I'm curious, though, how trusting a person you are
01:30if you were in the position of those Mormon girls
01:33because I am too trusting for my own good.
01:37I know that I would end up getting into trouble
01:40because I trust until someone gives me a reason not to,
01:43but then it's too late.
01:45What would you be like in that situation?
01:48Well, the reverse.
01:50In my old age, I've become very untrusting.
01:53I think everyone's...
01:57..on the make and...
02:00..ripping me off.
02:02There is something in that these days, to be fair.
02:04But obviously there's the underlying topic of religion
02:07that runs through this, and I don't want that to put anyone off
02:10because it's used in the best possible way.
02:14But is that a topic that really gets you engaged
02:18or is there something else that, for you, is like,
02:21oh, I could sit here and talk for hours about that?
02:24There's lots of things I can rabbit on about.
02:27You know...
02:29..pet peeves, obsessions.
02:31I really hate phones and tech.
02:33I think they've ruined our life. Yes.
02:36But I hope in this film, all the stuff about religion,
02:41as well as being, I hope, entertainingly presented,
02:44because the guy's such a weirdo,
02:46it is in itself quite interesting
02:49because this was very carefully researched by Scott and Brian,
02:52who wrote and directed the film.
02:54And there's stuff about Christianity in particular
02:58and how, you know, the basic pillars of Christianity,
03:04a saviour, born of a virgin, baptised in a river,
03:08performing miracles, resurrected from the dead, ascended into heaven,
03:12all the things you think of as essentially Christian,
03:15are in hundreds of religions and cults
03:18for thousands of years before Christ was born.
03:21Lots of them together.
03:23In each case, it's almost like Christianity
03:27was just another iteration of these older religions.
03:30That was very new to me and I think genuinely fascinating.
03:33I honestly thought you'd say, oh, when you read that script,
03:36you were like, oh, this resonates with me,
03:38because I feel like I've had that opinion, I guess, quite a bit.
03:42Have you? Oh, well, then you're better educated than I am.
03:45I don't know about that, but yeah, I was genuinely thinking that.
03:48And is it nice for you now at this point in your career
03:51to be kind of untethered by expectation in the roles that you take?
03:55I feel like I've grown up with you doing the rom-coms
03:58and being that person,
04:00but now there's so much that I'm really enjoying this different side.
04:05That's nice of you.
04:07Is it nice for you as well to not have that?
04:10I slightly wish I'd started this phase earlier.
04:13Or at least had it running in parallel.
04:16That would have been good.
04:18And I kind of did right at the beginning.
04:20Just after we made Four Weddings and a Funeral,
04:23I made another film with the same director, Mike Newell,
04:26called An Awfully Big Adventure,
04:29in which I was twisted, dark, weirdo theatre director
04:34with nicotine-stained fingers, very predatory.
04:38And no-one watched that film.
04:42But I wish they had because I would have liked to have two careers.
04:47One, making very enjoyable romantic comedies.
04:50I'm proud of them, I'm glad people like them and have watched them
04:54and they've given pleasure.
04:56And they're good, most of them.
04:58But it would have been nice to have the character acting
05:01going along simultaneously.
05:03We've got it now.
05:05You are loving it so much.
05:08It's been genuinely great to see this.
05:11I'm looking forward to more of this.
05:13Thank you so much, this is genuinely great.
05:15Thank you so much.
05:16Lovely to meet you.
05:17You too.