The exact moment Hugh Grant knew he’d made it as an actor: “I have arrived”
Hugh Grant is a name in Hollywood that instantly lends a film the probability of a good box office stint. The man has won the British Academy Award, bagged a Golden Globe, and has made billions at the box office, which makes it really hard to imagine a time when it was the smallest, seemingly insignificant victory in his life that truly cemented his journey to success as an actor for him.
For many, their introduction to Grant was via the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, the highest-grossing British film to date that transformed him into a star overnight. What many may not know is the film’s script came to the actor at the point in his life when he was seriously thinking of quitting acting.
He was 32 at that point, already having devoted 12 years of his life to acting and diligently giving his all to his career that just refused to come to life. He started with small roles in theatre plays, then transitioned to minor roles in television, playing supporting characters in films, despite winning the ‘Best Actor’ award at the 1987 Venice Film Festival for the British queer drama Maurice.
Fortunately, his present and future changed the second he read and accepted the role of Charles in the Mike Newell film that eventually earned him the Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor’. His portrayal of a man fearful of commitment, finding love and thinking the timing too chaotic for it to be anything permanent won hearts with a pace that overturned the actor’s luck in a matter of days.
But for Grant, the fame, the relentless admiration of fans, the sudden onslaught of leading roles, and the promise of a flourishing career did nothing to drive home the fact that he had finally achieved his dream—getting a parking space at the BBC studios that made it all real to him and confirmed that he had attained true success in the cutthroat film industry.
“People in Hollywood are suddenly ringing me up for lots of work,” he shared in an interview with Pop Culture Classics after Four Weddings and a Funeral skyrocketed his previously non-existent fame. “Studios are being very nice to me. But the one really big moment was getting a parking space at the BBC, which is unheard of. You can be starring in a series there, and they urge you to take the bus. The other day, I went to do a show, and they actually let me park in the forecourt. I have arrived.”
While that might have been “the” dream Grant always harboured, his career trajectory and its continued rise is an inspiration for many starting in Hollywood or hoping to make it big in ‘tinseltown’ one day. After serving the 1994 wonder at the box office, Grant would go on to do even bigger romantic comedy roles—of which Notting Hill deserves the highest praise—and find fame yet again when he decided to go against his carefully constructed image.
Whether it be as St Clair Bayfield in Florence Foster Jenkins or as a sociopathic oncologist accused of murder in HBO’s The Undoing, which would earn him several nominations, including a Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor’ and an Emmy for ‘Outstanding Lead Actor’.
