James Caan’s disparaging nickname for Hugh Grant: “He’s very neurotic”
If you have not had the unadulterated pleasure of watching the romantic comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, consider this your lucky day because there’s nothing like discovering your new favourite movie completely by accident. The film stars Hugh Grant as Michael, an auctioneer living in New York who falls in love with Gina (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and discovers she is the daughter of an infamous mafioso played by James Caan.
It is a terrible movie, and I mean that in the best way possible. Released in 1999, it fell smack dab in the middle of Grant’s stint as the bumbling, floppy-haired prince of rom-coms, but it has a little more fun with his persona than other movies of the era. Sure, Notting Hill might be a near-perfect film, but does it show Grant getting schooled by James Caan in the art of pronouncing “fuhgeddaboudit”? Absolutely not, and let me tell you, that is its great misfortune because that scene was, until Paddington 2, the pinnacle of Grant’s career.
Mickey Blue Eyes was ahead of its time in poking fun at the actor’s excessive Britishness. His courteousness does nothing for the mobsters. His accent is a liability. His instincts for pacifism may well be the death of him. All of these contrasts create a film that is over-the-top, full of clichés, and utterly nonsensical but coheres into something like an uncut diamond. It’s a bit rough, sure, but just beyond the surface, it’s an absolute gem.
One of the reasons the movie works so well is probably due to the real-life contrasts between two of its stars. James Caan and Hugh Grant really were like chalk and cheese, and Caan was more than happy to needle his co-star over their differences. The Bronx-born actor played the most hot-headed, violent member of the Corleone family in The Godfather movies and was even linked to real-life Mob ties throughout his career. His real-world tough guy image clashed with Grant’s persona as a bashful heartthrob, and somewhere along the line, Caan started calling his British co-star “Whippy”.
“You know those whippets who have to wear a sweater to stop them shivering when they go out on the street because they’re so chilly and nervous?” he said in an interview with The Guardian around the time the film was released. “That’s what Hugh reminds me of. He’s very neurotic, very soft and very British. I think it did him good to rub up against me.”
Grant agreed. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly around the same time, he revealed that Caan taught him a valuable lesson. “(He taught me) how to blow my nose without a handkerchief, which I’ve never come across before,” he said. “We filmed in the dead of winter in New York, and you get very cold and get a runny nose. He had a wonderful Brooklyn technique for holding one nostril and just blowing, and these extraordinary cables come out. It’s something that English people don’t do much, but I can do it quite well now.”
You learn something new every day.
