The “excruciating” 2003 scene Hugh Grant dreaded shooting: “Well, I’ll hate doing that”
The 1990s saw the dawn of a new generation of movie stars with Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Johnny Depp, and Keanu Reeves, yet no one owned the romantic comedy genre quite like Hugh Grant, whose onscreen charisma didn’t really come naturally to him.
Despite some of the awkward real-life controversies that he ran into, he made a breakthrough with his immensely charismatic performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which set the tone for what the rest of his career would look like.
While there is generally a fairly short lifespan for any young actors considered to be ‘heartthrobs’, as they are often replaced by a new crop of younger actors, Grant was able to stick around because he could mature into older romantic comedy roles. It was About a Boy in 2002, in which he gave a self-reflective performance as a man-child who is taught how to be a grown-up by a young boy, played by Nicolas Hoult, but he landed the most famous part in the next chapter of his career when Richard Curtis approached him to play the prime minister in the ensemble dramedy Love Actually.
Love Actually has steadily become one of the most divisive films of the 21st century; there are those who consider it to be a great holiday film that they watch every year, and some who believe it has bad messages and obnoxious, cloying melodrama.
Regardless of the reactions to the film, there are certain moments that now live in infamy because of how often they’ve been referenced, clipped on social media, and lampooned. Perhaps the most iconic is a scene where Grant, in character as the prime minister, dances through his office.
Grant hasn’t always been an actor who’s been willing to take criticism, but he came out in support of everyone who hated his dance scene in Love Actually.
“I saw it in the script, and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll hate doing that’,” he recalled to Variety, “I didn’t fancy doing the dance at all, let alone rehearsing it. To this day, there’s many people, and I agree with them, who think it’s the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid. Then some people like it, but I will give myself this credit. It was my idea to have that secretary lady catch me. Genius.”
Even if Grant used the situation to brag about himself, the moment in which his character is caught by the secretary is by far the most charming moment to end the scene, the joke being that the prime minister is just a normal person who requires the assistance of a member of his staff in an embarrassing moment, which is reflective of a very different time in 2003, where portraying the PM as a charming, goofy buffoon wasn’t considered to be that controversial, as it’s hard to imagine a similar scene in the post-Iraq War era.
Although it is admirable that Grant has been willing to admit faults with Love Actually, his storyline is arguably the best of the entire film. When looking at the more problematic aspects of the anthology, it’s the unusual relationship between the characters played by Keira Knightley, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Andrew Lincoln that feels the creepiest today. Grant’s performance is more in line with the type of broad, physical comedy that has been in fashion ever since the days of the Marx brothers.
