"I just think, why doesn't my character have any balls?" Hugh Grant takes a walk down memory lane as he rewatches scenes from his classic works including 'Love Actually,' 'Notting Hill,' 'Bridget Jones's Diary,' 'Paddington 2,' 'A Very English School,' 'The Undoing' and 'Heretic.' Hugh looks back at working alongside Julia Roberts in 'Notting Hill', shooting fight scenes with Colin Firth for 'Bridget Jones's Diary' and so much more.
HERETIC is in theaters nationwide on November 8
Director: Adam Lance Garcia
Director of Photography: Dave Sanders
Editor: Cory Stevens
Talent: Hugh Grant
Producer: Madison Coffey
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Lyla Neely
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza
Camera Operator: Nigel Akam
Gaffer: Dave Plank
Audio Engineer: Kevin Teixeira
Production Assistant: Nicole Murphy
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
HERETIC is in theaters nationwide on November 8
Director: Adam Lance Garcia
Director of Photography: Dave Sanders
Editor: Cory Stevens
Talent: Hugh Grant
Producer: Madison Coffey
Line Producer: Romeeka Powell
Associate Producer: Lyla Neely
Production Manager: Andressa Pelachi
Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes
Talent Booker: Lauren Mendoza
Camera Operator: Nigel Akam
Gaffer: Dave Plank
Audio Engineer: Kevin Teixeira
Production Assistant: Nicole Murphy
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Additional Editor: Jason Malizia
Assistant Editor: Andy Morell
Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Fine, of course, I...
00:03Of course.
00:04Whenever this, you know, I'm flicking the channels at home after a few drinks and this comes up,
00:09I just think, why doesn't my character have any balls?
00:12Hello, I'm Hugh Grant, and I regret to say we're now going to go through some scenes from my career.
00:17Right, here they are.
00:31Does Natalie live here?
00:33No.
00:34Right, fine, thank you, sorry to disturb.
00:36Get out!
00:38Aren't you the Prime Minister?
00:42Er, yes, in fact I am. Merry Christmas.
00:45Richard only wrote for weddings and a funeral in Notting Hill. Other people directed them.
00:50And then, like a lot of writers I've come across, although he admired the directors he'd worked with,
00:54he was dying to do it himself. And we all dreaded it and thought he won't be able to do it.
00:59But actually, I watched this the other day and I think he's a brilliant director.
01:03Much more cinematic, great visuals. Hats off to him.
01:08Again, you watch these things and a lot of it's utterly preposterous.
01:11But of course the Prime Minister would have some civil servant who could find out exactly where she lived on the street.
01:16As many people have pointed out. But it doesn't matter, you know, you ride the wave of sort of charm of the whole thing.
01:22Ah, hello. Does Natalie live here?
01:26No, she doesn't.
01:27Oh dear.
01:28Are you singing carols?
01:30Er, no, no I'm not.
01:31I think it was all in one night. I think we had to move along because they open in different ways.
01:37They're semi-detached houses or something like that. I'm sure we moved along.
01:40I look awfully tired. I think I'd just shot, I'd just come in from shooting two weeks notice in New York.
01:46And I seem to remember being exhausted here.
01:49Oh, hello.
01:52Hello.
01:54This is my mum and my dad and my uncle Tony and my auntie Lynn.
01:59Very nice to meet you.
02:01And this is the Prime Minister.
02:04Yes, we can see that darling.
02:07My wife pointed this out the other day. She loves it and she says it's about pain.
02:11The pain of love. And actually all these stories are based on pain.
02:15Even the little boy is in pain and I'm in pain and Laura Linney's in pain because her brother is,
02:22you know, in a very difficult situation in hospital.
02:25It's all about pain and then the best kind of British humour dealing with pain.
02:30And I think when humour in a film is solving something or a means of coping, I think it's trebly enjoyable.
02:45Can I just say no to your kind request and leave it at that?
02:52Yes.
02:57Fine, of course. I...
03:00Of course.
03:02Probably all the time with Julia, as with any brilliant actress, you're just thinking,
03:07oh Christ, they're really good. I'm not going to be as good as her.
03:10And she is great at emoting and she's got that kind of quality where it looks like her skin is wafer thin.
03:19You can sort of see her soul.
03:21You know, I'm flicking the channels at home after a few drinks and this comes up.
03:25I just think, why doesn't my character have any balls?
03:28There's a scene in this film where she's in my house and the paps come to the front door and ring the bell.
03:33And I think I just let her go past me and open the door and that's awful.
03:38And I've never had a girlfriend, or indeed now wife, who hasn't said, why the hell didn't you stop her?
03:42What's wrong with you? And I don't really have an answer to that.
03:44It was how it was written and I think he's despicable, really.
03:51I should have done this years ago.
03:53Done what?
03:55This.
03:57Fuck me, that hurt.
04:01What the fuck do you think you're doing?
04:03This.
04:05Oh Christ, not again.
04:08The big fight was to stop stuntmen getting involved.
04:14Because they always want to come in and say, you know, and choreograph the whole thing.
04:20And say, mate, it'd be great if, you know, you swing a right hook and his head will go back.
04:25And I just thought, yeah, in action films, cowboy films, whatever, that's great.
04:31But this is two middle class Englishmen and they don't fight like that.
04:36I've seen them fight and it's shit.
04:39So we managed to ban the stuntman.
04:41I think the last thing he contributed was probably the dustbin lid.
04:44And after that it's just me and Colin messing about.
04:46Colin's very weak.
04:48He's virtually a piece of shellfish.
04:52So that wasn't really a problem.
04:54We were kind to each other.
04:56On the next film we had another of these fights.
04:58And we'd got older and we both put our backs out.
05:02And a chiropractor had to be summoned to the set.
05:08I'm so sorry.
05:14Oh God, I'm sorry.
05:17He doesn't grow at all, as I recall, between this one and the next one.
05:21But the one we've just made, he's considerably older, 24 years older or something.
05:26And I did worry that, you know, the same nice little skirt Jones is great.
05:33But it's borderline tragic for a man in his early 60s.
05:37So we invented a whole sort of interim story in which he did get together with some woman.
05:43And he did have a kid.
05:45He was estranged, of course, because he shags her sister.
05:47And he hasn't seen his son for 10 years.
05:51And it just made him a bit more...
05:53I think if he'd just been walking up and down the King's Road chatting up girls for 24 years,
05:58it would have been hard to endure him.
06:15Well, I do love this film.
06:21I just got a very unsettling letter with the script from Paul King saying,
06:28look, we're making Paddington 2 and this time the bad guy in it is a washed up old actor
06:35who's incredibly vain and no one really likes him.
06:37We thought of you.
06:39And I got over that hump.
06:45Lovely Ray
06:51I went to a converted Victorian bathhouse, full and Broadway,
06:57and two charming choreographers worked and worked and worked at me.
07:01And I used to say to them, any better today?
07:03And they were very frank.
07:05They'd say, no, maybe worse.
07:07It got good enough by the end.
07:09And really, I'm kept alive by all these other fantastic proper dancers.
07:11And we had a fantastic choreographer, slightly camp chap.
07:15You'd never guess from the choreography, but he's a bit camp.
07:17Well, it seems I didn't need the West End after all.
07:22Just a captive audience.
07:26What am I like?
07:28Guards, lock me up!
07:30Even though it's a kid's film and a sequel,
07:32and perhaps you would expect it doesn't need too much thought,
07:35I always now put in vast amounts of thought and anxiety.
07:39And I had a whole vast backstory for Phoenix.
07:42I can tell you why he's called Phoenix.
07:44Because he was conceived in the Phoenix Theatre on St. Martin's Lane
07:48by his mother, who was in love with a famous actor,
07:51who was married and was shagging her on the side,
07:54and then she produced Phoenix.
07:56He grew up as a sort of mummy's boy,
07:58and she shoved him into theatre school and over-mothered him.
08:03I think that's why he's rather lonely
08:05and has never had a good relationship,
08:07and is a complicated character
08:09and very, very self-entitled and vain.
08:14So even though it's all madness and silliness,
08:16I did try to make him 3D.
08:18No actor, I don't think, including myself,
08:21really ever wants to play the charming lead.
08:24They're very difficult, because if you're not careful,
08:27they go wet or sort of just slightly unappealing.
08:34When people perform Romeo and Juliet, no-one wants to play Romeo.
08:37They want to play Mercutio or Tybalt,
08:39more complex or dangerous characters.
08:42It's always been the same,
08:44and audiences, for some reason, are always drawn to the baddie,
08:47which is a fascinating thing. Why are they?
08:49And it must mean that we are fundamentally evil as human beings.
08:53The antagonist, the bad guy,
08:55represents the real truth of the human experience.
09:04Except I did not have a relationship with Norman Scott.
09:10Jeremy, I kept you off the witness stand to save your life.
09:15The prosecution had evidence.
09:18They had men from the pubs, men from the streets,
09:21men who know you, all of them liars.
09:24He was of an era when men couldn't, or Englishmen,
09:28of that class and that background
09:30couldn't possibly admit that they were gay.
09:32Even in this scene, he's sticking to that.
09:34He's saying, you know, all those men, those witnesses were liars,
09:38and he frames this whole explanation as,
09:40you know, one can only speculate that this might be the case.
09:44And he still can't quite let go.
09:46And I remember thinking that very final look to my barrister here,
09:51Norman Scott, one might say that Norman Scott was the best.
09:55I remember thinking this should be
09:57maybe one of the very few glimpses of the real quivering jelly
10:02in the soul of Jeremy Thorpe,
10:06and I saw how much he's suffered from having been so repressed.
10:09Although I couldn't admit this either, or Jeremy couldn't admit this,
10:12I did love, I loved Norman.
10:15It was a love affair.
10:17It was a thwarted love affair.
10:19And so I tried to be a bit vulnerable in this particular close-up.
10:22Given those men,
10:25it may be, I suppose, one could imagine...
10:30that Norman Scott was the best.
10:34It's quite tragic for the poor old boy.
10:36You know, he gets off on this charge of trying to murder Norman Scott, his ex-lover.
10:40But as his mother whispers in his ear, you know you're ruined,
10:43because the scandal won't go away.
10:45And he never, after that moment, could go back into politics,
10:48and he'd had this glittering career up till then.
10:50And so it's sort of the end for him.
10:52The whole edifice is collapsing around him.
10:54He's there on YouTube, you know, for years.
10:59You know, from interviews or whatever he was doing, TV shows in the 50s, 60s.
11:04I realized I could do a pretty good imitation of him.
11:06I'm quite good at imitations.
11:08And then I was scared, because I thought,
11:10well, this has to be a lot more than just an imitation.
11:12Sort of took a huge Jeremy Thorpe bath.
11:15And I knew everything about him.
11:17I read every book about him.
11:19I met lots of people who'd known him as friends and as colleagues.
11:23I became slightly sort of obsessed with him.
11:25There were certain odd keys,
11:28as there often are when you're trying to find a character.
11:31Jeremy Thorpe wore a particular kind of hat,
11:33and I was in a costume fitting,
11:35and it didn't look right, didn't look right,
11:37and none of the hats were right,
11:38even though they looked similar to this famous hat he wore.
11:40And then I just put it at a rakish angle,
11:42slightly on the back of the head, and there was Jeremy Thorpe.
11:45And that was more than just important in terms of hats.
11:48It was important, I see, yes, rakish,
11:51a bit of a chancer, a bit of a gambler.
11:54He lived a very, very risky life.
11:56Getting dressed every morning for this character,
11:58and he had very specific three-piece suits
12:02with a waistcoat and an absurd watch chain
12:06that no one had worn for decades.
12:08And this became quite a ritual every morning,
12:11of getting dressed like that and putting on the...
12:14He wore a special ring and the chain and everything,
12:16and then there he was.
12:18But it's also a lot of makeup.
12:20I worked with a genius makeup team
12:23who created a look,
12:25if you know this real character,
12:27it's pretty damn good.
12:35Was that song you used to sing when you were little?
12:40With my hands on myself, that one.
12:42What have we here?
12:44These are my eye peepers, nothing to fear
12:46Eye peepers, brain box, and wibbly-wobbly-woos
12:48That's what they taught me when I went to school
12:52Really? Are you sure?
12:56Did that hurt, darling? Did it?
12:58Did that fucking hurt?
13:05Well, it's a great piece of cutting there by Suzanne O'Byrne.
13:08It's wonderful.
13:10This was my idea, wibbly-wobbly-woos
13:12and with my hands on myself.
13:14It was a song that I used to sing with my cousins in the car.
13:16So well done me, because I think it's quite good.
13:18Especially in contrast to
13:20smashing that poor girl's head against the wall.
13:22I remember dreading this scene.
13:24I remember thinking this is really, really difficult
13:26when it was on paper
13:28that he's kind of breaking up
13:30and I may not be able to do this.
13:32And I did have a long panic about it.
13:34A long, long, long panic
13:36sitting in my house in France, scribbling notes.
13:38I don't think I ever planned my voice would crack.
13:40What I did do
13:42in this scene and in other scenes
13:44when the real Jonathan
13:46made brief appearances
13:49was I remember my eyes slightly defocused.
13:51I did something with my eyes
13:53where they don't quite see properly
13:55just for a moment or two.
13:57That was my way of suddenly being
13:59the real Jonathan.
14:01And throughout, I had in my script,
14:03I always have zillions of notes in my script
14:05and they were, in this case,
14:07they all were under two sections.
14:09There was always RJ for real Jonathan
14:11and FJ or something for fake Jonathan
14:13which was most of him.
14:15He was mostly fake.
14:17Child cancer doctor who's just great
14:19and charming and lovely.
14:21And then just occasionally,
14:23the real guy would poke through.
14:25That's what they taught me
14:27when I went to school.
14:29You'll never leave me.
14:31Really?
14:35It seems to me
14:37that that's how we all operate.
14:39There's always
14:41a sad jelly somewhere inside us.
14:43There's some psychosis,
14:46some hurt, something.
14:48And behavior is the layers
14:50we wrap around it to protect that jelly.
14:52American actors
14:54traditionally have gone on about
14:56emotion, I need to emote.
14:58Well, yeah, but most of the time
15:00that's hidden.
15:02We try to hide our emotions
15:04or pretend we're actually feeling
15:06something else.
15:08So there's very few moments, I think,
15:10in life when naked emotion comes through.
15:12It does, but it's rare,
15:14and maybe I do suit some of these
15:16quite British characters who are
15:18incredibly defended
15:20and have layer upon layer
15:22of shell around them.
15:30And I got closer to God
15:32through genre
15:34and rigorous study
15:36as I worked on my
15:38personal relationship with Heavenly Father
15:40and I think strengthened it.
15:43Do you know what I found?
15:45The more you know,
15:47the less you know.
15:49I went through this process I have
15:51of going through the script
15:53with a very, very fine tooth comb
15:55and asking myself,
15:57why does he say this, why does he do that?
15:59Every tiny moment, why?
16:01And sometimes the answers to those questions
16:03open a whole
16:05avenue of possibilities
16:07about what might have been his history.
16:09Things that might have happened to him
16:11and I type them all into a computer
16:13and the thing gets bigger and bigger
16:15and mushrooms into this huge
16:17biography. And whether or not
16:19that actually helps, I don't know.
16:21I think it does, but I know that it helps
16:23my nerves. If I do several hours
16:25of this work every day for weeks,
16:27even months before the filming,
16:29I feel a bit less tense.
16:31And by the time I was 50, I was
16:33malnourished from the fast food
16:35of religion I'd been packing into my
16:37brain for the best part of a decade.
16:40Every sect, cult,
16:42creed, denomination
16:44all claim to be the one true doctrine
16:46and yet none seem true when
16:48held under the microscope.
16:50I think the big debate for me in this scene
16:52was how much of what he's saying here
16:54he means.
16:56Did he ever have a wrestle with
16:58faith? Or how much is just
17:00dicking with them
17:02and beginning
17:04to unsettle them, which is something that
17:06he's addicted to doing with
17:08women. Unsettling them,
17:10disorientating them,
17:12exerting control over them
17:14and then
17:16well, I shan't spoil the film.
17:18So I wondered what else was out there.
17:22I promise you
17:24the last thing I wanted to do
17:26was find the one
17:28true religion.
17:32But unfortunately I did.
17:35In a close up like this one
17:37as it pushes in on my face
17:39I'm sure I did various
17:41versions in different
17:43takes where the
17:45creepometer was dialed up
17:47or down because
17:49I needed to give the directors
17:51options in the edit.
17:53I felt that he was
17:55probably one of these guys
17:57or one of these people
17:59who sadly
18:01despite incredible intellectual
18:03powers, he's a very bright man
18:05just
18:07finds it hard
18:09to have friends and
18:11close relationships with people. They
18:13slightly recoil from him and I
18:15always felt that this was a source of great sadness
18:17to him. I've witnessed people I know
18:19and quite love who
18:21are like that and who compensate by
18:23trying to be
18:25fun. They try to be
18:27fun, they try to be pranksters,
18:29jokers and
18:31they think this is going to make them popular
18:33and actually it just makes them more and more creepy.
18:35But he's quite good
18:37at these things. So to begin
18:39with it's plausible and the girls
18:41come into the house and it's only
18:43gradually that they realize
18:45there's something very, very wrong.
18:47There's two things I think you absolutely have to have.
18:49One is to understand their inner pain
18:51because everything's compensation. I think all behaviour
18:53is sort of compensation for some kind of
18:55suffering and if you've got that then the audience
18:57will be very interested.
18:59It's not just a character baddie.
19:01It's a human
19:03and it's very much more watchable.
19:05Secondly, and it's part of the same thing
19:07in a way, is I've got to either
19:09like them or enjoy them. I liked
19:11being him. I certainly enjoyed being him.
19:13I'm surprised I said that.
19:15But in a way I think you have
19:17to.
19:23That's enough of that. It was very nice of you if you did watch any of this.
19:25I appreciate it.
19:27Bye.