“I was a bit frightened of her now”: the actor who terrifies Hugh Grant
If Hugh Grant can leave the Met Gala red carpet unscathed and unfazed, it’s difficult to imagine what would make the 63-year-old British actor shake in his boots. The answer? Women.
Well, not just any woman. While promoting HBO’s political satire The Regime, Hugh Grant told Indie Wire he was nervous in the lead-up to filming the series, mostly because he would be sharing a screen with his formidable former British co-star Kate Winslet. What’s his Bridget Jones’s Diary and Notting Hill next to Winslet’s Titanic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Trick question: they’re all equally iconic.
“Well, I’ve barely seen her for 30 years since Sense and Sensibility, and I was a bit frightened of her now,” he confessed. In the 1995 Ang Lee adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel, Grant plays the honourable Edward Ferrars while Winslet stars as Marianne Dashwood, the charming and passionate younger sister to Emma Thompson’s Elinor Dashwood. Revealing, “I mean, God almighty, she’s got about 400 Oscars and is revered.” Close, although last time I checked, Winslet has taken home only one Academy Award for her lead role in the 2008 drama The Reader. Actually, why doesn’t she have more?
But it wasn’t all just sheer terror on set. Grant describes shooting a scene with Winslet for The Regime where she’s about to have him beaten up as “quite fun”. He added: “I know she’s going to have me beaten up because that’s what she does when she’s in a bad mood — but I have to try and stay civil for the sake of my family. And then, about halfway through, or three-quarters of the way through the scene, I just can’t stand her. And I go for her. And we go for each other. I think it was very well-written.”
Grant compared the experience of performing alongside Winslet to “doing Florence Foster Jenkins with Meryl [Streep]” or even the psychological miniseries “The Undoing with Nicole [Kidman]”. In fact, back in late 2016, Grant shared a similarly deferential sentiment in a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, where he discussed playing second fiddle to Meryl Streep. “I imagined working with her would be terrifying, and, indeed, it was really. She is so brilliant, of course, a genius, which is frightening in itself, but also unbelievably focused and dedicated. I had to raise my game.”
There you have it. Nothing is quite as motivating or humbling as exchanging lines with the revered dames of Hollywood. I wonder if Grant would add Julia Roberts and Julianne Moore to the lineup? “I’m quite frightened of these women,” Grant continued. “So it was just a question of trying to keep my end up. She [Kate] was very kind to me.”
Despite Grant being held up, like his peer Winslet, as among the best actors to emerge from the 1990s, it’s nice to know that he’s not yet numb to the thrills of the profession. He’s a good sport. Apparently, you have to be there when you’re in the self-professed “freak show” phase of your career.
