The unusual way Donald Sutherland convinced Richard E Grant to become an actor
The ambitions of many actors usually started out in childhood upon seeing the masters at work on the screen or stage. The same can be said for Richard E Grant, except it wasn’t exactly the actor’s work that convinced him he could make it as an actor. While Grant achieved his debut and breakthrough at the age of 30, he had been dreaming of becoming an actor since the tender age of 12.
Asked by The Hollywood Reporter whether he was scared upon deciding to become an actor, he said, “My father thought I was completely insane. When I was 12 years old in 1969, Neil Armstrong had just landed on the moon, and everybody wanted to be an astronaut. So saying that you wanted to be an actor was ludicrous.” While many would still consider it ludicrous for a 12-year-old to have ambitions of becoming an actor, it seems a much more common experience nowadays, with the cult of celebrity well underway.
But for Grant, it just didn’t seem plausible, especially coming from where he was at the time he was growing up. “There was no precedent where I grew up [in Swaziland] of doing that. And my father was genuinely worried that I’d spend my life in tights and makeup and be destitute. All of which has come true” Many parents at the time probably shared similar worries for any child with a desire to go into the creative industries, it simply seemed frivolous and far-fetched. But for Grant, while he may claim his father’s ideas of destitution have come true, he has gone on to great success, including Academy Award and BAFTA nominations.
So, who was the actor who convinced Grant to continue with his ambitions despite his parents’ worries? None other than Donald Sutherland. By the time Grant was 12, Sutherland was already a successful television and stage actor, who had just appeared in his breakthrough film role in The Dirty Dozen. However, Grant didn’t reference any of these performances in particular as inspiration. No, it was Sutherland’s rather distinctive look that convinced Grant he could become a successful actor.
People around Grant questioned his ambitions, especially due to his own unique looks, “It was a childhood passion, but people said: ‘How can you be an actor? You look too weird. You’ve got a face like a tombstone.’ I said, ‘Well, Donald Sutherland has become an actor and he’s very tall and has a long face. So fuck it.’” And, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. His distinctive look and voice are inherent to Grant’s appeal as an actor.
In a strange way, this demonstrates the importance of representation of all kinds on screen, as even something as simple as having a slightly odd face by the accounts of those around you can be enough to hinder your ambitions. So, here’s to more weird face representation on and off-screen.
