Guys, I’m so sad.
Hugh Grant appeared on an episode of Close Up for The Hollywood Reporter , and he admitted that he regrets a lot of the choices he made in his acting career.
Including the rom-coms. So, what gives?
How could he regret this?
Daniel Cleaver? The handsome jerk that we grew to hate, love, or somewhere in between?
Hugh Grant actually regrets Bridget Jones’ Diary and tbh, I am not okay. That movie is iconic.
On an episode of Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter , he spilled all the tea.
He basically regrets everything after his first big movie.
AKA, Four Weddings and a Funeral .
When asked how he knew he’d made it:
“It was after I made Four Weddings and a Funeral , and I came out as a hitherto unknown crap actor.”
He had the whole group laughing throughout.
And he developed an inferiority complex.
“[…] but less now because I’ve gotten too old and ugly and fat to do them anymore, so now I’ve done other things and I’ve got marginally less self-hatred.”
Using dark humor to cover real pain? I think we all can relate.
He got trapped in the romantic comedy box.
But he said that he knew exactly how fortunate he was.
“I was being paid tons of money. I was very lucky.
And most of those romantic comedies I can look squarely in the face — one or two are shockers, but on the whole I can look them in the face and people like them.”
Which ones would you say are the ones he can’t?
According to Rotten Tomatoes, one of the worst films he ever starred in was Nine Months .
The critical consensus on Grant in that move is brutal , claiming that director Christopher Columbus relied, “[…] far too heavily on the trademark tics of his miscast leading man.”
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The other has to be “Did You Hear About the Morgans,” right?
I’m only basing that off of having watched it once, which was one time too many.
Rotten Tomatoes agrees. It’s 12% fresh, and that review just broke me as a person.
But regardless, Grant knows what his job is.
He said,
“I am a big believer that our job is to entertain. It’s not to practice some weird, quasi-religious experience.”
It looks like he believes it’s a collaborative experience with the actors and the crew. They all work to entertain us.
He admitted he took jobs just to get paid.
“[…] when I was unemployed, I took everything. The worse it was, the quicker I took it.”
He knew some of them were bad when he signed on, too, which cracked him up.
He literally once took a job to flirt with the lead.
When he decided to do Rowing With the Wind , his only motivation was to get to flirt with his on-screen love interest, Elizabeth Hurley.
That move was pretty successful because they wound up dating.
The production of that movie sounded like a nightmare.
He outlined his thoughts at the time:
“Oh, well, this is nonsense, this film, it’s being made in Spain with English actors, with a director who doesn’t speak English and German money […]”
Oh, wow.
When he said the director didn’t speak English, he meant it.
They got a translator on set, and the director’s notes were less than kind.
“He used to come up to the actors after a take and say, “Yes, Gonzalo says ‘be less wooden.’ It’s a very difficult note to take.”
And he had some regrets.
When reflecting on what he wishes he knew when he was younger, he turned to Richard Madden and Stephan James.
“When I was where you are now and you are now after Four Weddings , and the world was my oyster, I should’ve made interesting decisions and done different stuff. “
“Every decision I made was probably wrong.”
After Four Weddings , he chose to take on similar roles. Looking back, he felt it was a mistake.
“[…] I repeated myself almost identically about 17 times in a row.”
Well…I can’t argue with that one, he did become a rom-com leading man for a reason.
He had a good sense of humor about it, though.
“Yeah, I had to wait until all the romantic comedy had dried up before I was offered anything else.”
I don’t think they’ve dried up—they’ve changed !
I’d say they do well on platforms like Netflix, rather than in theatres, like in Grant’s heyday.
Let’s all pour one out for “Love, Actually.”
Because it’s a Christmas icon for a reason, and lowkey Hugh Grant’s character gets the best and most wholesome storyline of all of them.
What’s your favorite Hugh Grant rom-com? Which one do you wish you could un-watch?
