The movie Hugh Grant wants to delete from history: “I specialised in being bad”
If you were to ask someone to think of a quintessentially British actor, you’d probably hear ‘Hugh Grant’ in response. The actor dominated the 1990s with his floppy hair, soon crossing the border to become a worldwide star of rom-coms and historical dramas.
Grant represented a bumbling British archetype, with roles in Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill exemplifying his ability to play classically English love interests. In the latter specifically, where he stars opposite Julia Roberts’ American superstar Anna Scott, Grant is the ultimate British romantic lead, both shy and charming, playing a bookseller with little interest in celebrity, or people for that matter.
Grant won many people over with the role, and he continued to do so with parts in Bridget Jones’s Diary and its sequel, The Edge of Reason (even though he played a sleazebag), About a Boy, Two Weeks Notice, and Love Actually. As the years have progressed, Grant has expanded his choice in films, now largely veering away from romantic roles in favour of antagonistic or humorous ones.
From The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Paddington 2, Wonka, and Heretic, Grant’s career has taken a sharp turn in a new direction, allowing him to step away from stereotype and prove his range.
However, despite the fact that Grant’s career has seen him appear in many acclaimed movies over the years, he has admitted to hating a lot of the projects he has starred in, mainly during the early years of his career. On The Late Late Show, Grant revealed that he “would happily shred my IMDB page,” because he “specialized in being bad for decades.”
We can’t help but think Grant is being a bit harsh on himself, considering that one of his earliest roles was in James Ivory’s widely-praised Maurice. The period drama followed Grant’s titular character, a young man who explores his homosexuality during his time at university in the Edwardian era, and remains a classic entry into the queer cinema canon.
The movie helped to launch Grant’s career, but he did appear in his fair share of questionable films in the next few years, from The Lair of the White Worm (“I’m not sure if it was meant to be horrific or funny,” he once said) to The Lady and the Highwayman.
Clearly, Grant was still finding his feet as an actor, and while he realised his love for period pieces early on, not all of them were great. The Lady and the Highwayman was a 1989 television film that also starred Lysette Anthony, Oliver Reed, John Mills, Claire Bloom, and Michael York. Despite its relatively impressive cast, it didn’t become a particularly memorable piece of cinema, and Grant wishes he had never starred in it.
“I’m meant to be sexy,” he explained, before adding, “Low-budget, bad wig, bad hat. I look like Deputy Dawg.” The actor admits that he “got better” when it came to choosing roles, but during the 1980s and early 1990s, he certainly lent himself to some less memorable films and television series in the hopes of breaking through.
