The TV show Hugh Grant was banned from reappearing on: “I did have a tantrum”
Although the formerly floppy-haired Fulham fan Hugh Grant is undeniably one of the finest British actors around at the moment, and you only have to watch his outrageous turn in 2024’s A24 horror Heretic to know that, he does have a bit of a reputation for being, shall we say, challenging on occasion.
In later years, it seems Grant has calmed down slightly, and indeed, many a person on the internet has reported meeting him in the flesh and his being a thoroughly nice chap. But back in the day, there were plenty of instances of him having something of a temper and displaying that anger in a fairly vociferous way.
One of those times, and Grant admits as much, came back in 2009 when he appeared on Jon Stewart’s Comedy Central news round-up The Daily Show, an event that led the host to label him the worst guest in the show’s long history, “And we’ve had dictators”, he clarified.
Grant apparently spent his time backstage complaining that he had other places to be, with Stewart adding, “He’s giving everyone shit the whole time, and he’s a big pain in the ass”.
As if that weren’t enough, the Englishman was also unhappy with the promotional clip selected by his own publicist to showcase the film he was there to promote, Did You Hear About the Morgans? Stewart recalled, Grant had angrily asked, “What is that clip? It’s a terrible clip”. “Well, then make a better fucking movie,” Stewart retorted, swearing that he would “never” have the actor back.
Looking back on it, in his defence, Grant was pretty contrite about the whole thing, admitting, “I did have a tantrum backstage. About once a year, I have a really mega-tantrum, and sadly, he witnessed one”, going as far as to describe his behaviour as “unforgivable”.
It does seem to have had an effect on him then, although he didn’t cover himself in glory in a 2023 red carpet interview where he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than being asked inane questions by a roving reporter. But if we are to separate the art from the artist, Grant has been on quite a roll the last ten years or so, taking on roles that he’s absolutely excelled in, from the BBC’s A Very English Scandal in which he played a disgraced MP and got nominated for a Bafta, to the massively overrated hipster’s movie of choice Paddington 2.
He seems to be taking something of a break at the moment without any forthcoming acting projects in the pipeline, although he was seen alongside Renee Zellweger and Colin Firth in this year’s Bridget Jones reboot, Mad About the Boy, which did big numbers thanks to a lot of women who like drinking wine.
His performance in that film garnered some acclaim, but the same can’t be said of the frankly dreadful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory spin-off, Wonka, the year before, which combined some of the worst things imaginable, namely Timothée Chalamet’s “Nope. Scratch that. Reverse it” delivery, poor CGI and endless mass dancing featuring theatre kids with overly-eager eyes and teeth.
Hopefully, the clever people at A24 will come up with a way to make a Heretic 2, even though he (spoiler alert) died quite dramatically at the end of that movie. Maybe we can get a prequel, in which he can forensically explain more about the history of songs like he did with ‘The Air That I Breathe’ while being super creepy.
