Hugh Grant
Encyclopedia
Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor and film producer. He has received a Golden Globe Award
, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César
. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's sleeper hit
Four Weddings and a Funeral
(1994). He used this breakthrough role as a frequent cinematic persona during the 1990s to deliver comic performances in mainstream films like Mickey Blue Eyes
(1999) and Notting Hill
(1999). By the turn of the 21st century, he had established himself as a leading man
skilled with a satirical comic talent. Since the 2000s, Grant has expanded his oeuvre with critically acclaimed turns as a cad
in Bridget Jones's Diary
(2001), About A Boy
(2002), Love Actually
(2003), and American Dreamz
(2006).
Within the film industry, Grant is cited as an anti-film star who approaches his roles like a character actor
, with the ability to make acting look effortless. Hallmarks of his comic skills include a nonchalant touch of irony
/sarcasm
and studied physical mannerisms as well as his precisely-timed dialogue delivery and facial expressions. The entertainment media's coverage of Grant's life off the big screen has often overshadowed his work as a thespian. He has been vocal about his disrespect for the profession of acting, and in his disdain towards the culture of celebrity and hostility towards the media. In a career spanning 30 years, Grant has repeatedly claimed that acting is not a true calling but just a job he fell into.
in Hammersmith
, London
, England, the second son of Fynvola Susan (née
MacLean
; b. Wickham
, Hampshire
, 11 October 1933; m. Boxgrove
, Sussex
, 6 July 1957; d. Hounslow
, London, July 2001) and Captain
James Murray Grant
(b. 1929). Grant has an older brother, James Grant, who is a banker. Genealogist Antony Adolph described Grant's family history as "a colourful Anglo-Scottish tapestry of warriors, empire-builders and aristocracy," including William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan
and Dr. James Stewart. John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl
, Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham
, Rt. Hon. Sir Evan Nepean
, and a sister of former British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval
, are a few of his notable maternal ancestors. Grant's grandfather, Major James Murray Grant, DSO
, a native of Inverness
in Scotland, was decorated for bravery and leadership at Dunkirk during World War II.
Grant's father, Capt. Grant, was trained at Sandhurst
and served with the Seaforth Highlanders
for eight years in Malaya
, Germany and Scotland. Capt. Grant gained the rank of Officer
in the service of the Seaforth Highlanders
and lived at Findhorn
, Morayshire in 1957, and at Sutton, London
in 1974. He ran a carpet firm, pursued hobbies such as golf and painting watercolours
, and raised his family in Chiswick
, west London
, where the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane. In September 2006, a collection of Capt. Grant's paintings was hosted by the John Martin Gallery in a charity exhibition, organised by his famous son, called "James Grant: 30 Years of Watercolours." His mother, Fynvola, was the great-granddaughter of Sir Evan Colville Nepean (CB
), whose father, Rev. Canon Evan Nepean, served as the Canon of Westminster and was Chaplain In Ordinary
to Queen Victoria
. She worked as a schoolteacher and taught Latin, French and music for more than 30 years in the state schools of west London
. She died at the age of 65, 18 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
.
Grant's accent
is an inheritance from his mother and, on Inside the Actors Studio
in 2002, he credited her with "any acting genes that [he] might have." Both his parents were children of military families, but, despite his parents' backgrounds, Grant has stated that his family was not always affluent while he was growing up. Grant spent his childhood summers shooting and hunting with his grandfather in Scotland. Grant's elder brother, James "Jamie" Grant, is a successful banker as Managing Director, Head of Healthcare, Consumer, & Retail Investment Banking Coverage, at JPMorgan Chase in New York.
in Hammersmith on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket and football for the school. He also represented Latymer on the popular quiz show, Top of the Form, an academic competition between two teams of four secondary school students each. Chris Hammond, his form teacher in 1975 and later the assistant head of Latymer, told People
magazine that Grant was "a clever boy among clever boys." In 1979, he won the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford
where he starred in his first film, Privileged
, produced by the Oxford University Film Foundation
, OUFF. He studied English literature
and graduated with 2:1 honours. Actress Anna Chancellor
, who knew Grant at Oxford, has recalled, "I first met Hugh at a party at Oxford. There was something magical about him. He was a star even then, without having done anything." He received an offer from the Courtauld Institute of Art
, University of London
to pursue a PhD in the history of art, but decided not to take the offer because he failed to secure a grant. Viewing acting as nothing more than a creative outlet, he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society
and starred in a successful touring production of Twelfth Night
. Hugh Grant funds The Fynvola Grant Scholarship at Latymer Upper School
in memory of his mother who was a teacher in West London.
(1982), Grant dabbled in a variety of jobs: he wrote book reviews, worked as assistant groundsman at Fulham Football Club
, tried his hand at tutoring, wrote comedy sketches for TV shows, and was hired by Talkback Productions
to write and produce radio commercials for products such as Mighty White bread and Red Stripe lager. To obtain his Equity card, he joined the repertory theatre Nottingham Playhouse
and lived for a year at Park Terrace in The Park Estate, Nottingham
. Bored with small acting parts, he created his own comedy revue called The Jockeys of Norfolk with friends Chris Lang
and Andy Taylor. The group toured London’s pub comedy circuit with stops at The George IV in Chiswick
, Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice
and The King's Head in Islington
. Starting on a low note, The Jockeys of Norfolk eventually proved a hit at the Edinburgh Festival
after their sketch on the Nativity
, told as an Ealing
comedy, garnered them a spot on the BBC2
TV show called Edinburgh Nights. During this time, Grant also appeared in theatre productions of plays such as An Inspector Calls
, Lady Windermere's Fan
, and Coriolanus
.
's 1987 Edwardian
drama, Maurice
, adapted from E.M. Forster's novel of the same name. He and co-star James Wilby
shared the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival
for their portrayals of Cantabrigian
collegians Clive Durham and Maurice Hall, respectively. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Grant balanced small roles on television with rare film work, which included a supporting role in The Dawning
(1988), opposite Anthony Hopkins
and a turn as Lord Byron
in a Goya Award-winning Spanish production called Remando al viento (1988). He also portrayed some other real life figures during in his early career such as Charles Heidsieck
in Champagne Charlie and as Hugh Cholmondeley
in BAFTA Award-nominated White Mischief
.
In 1990, he made a cameo appearance
in the sport/crime drama The Big Man
, opposite Liam Neeson
, and in which Grant assumed a Scottish accent. The film explores the life of a Scottish miner (Neeson) who becomes unemployed during a union strike. In 1991, he played Julie Andrews
' gay
son in the ABC
made-for-television film Our Sons
.
In 1992, he appeared in Roman Polanski
's film Bitter Moon
, portraying a fastidious and proper British tourist who is married, but finds himself enticed by the sexual hedonism of a seductive French woman and her embittered, paraplegic American husband. The film was called an "anti-romantic opus of sexual obsession and cruelty" by the Washington Post. His other work in period pieces such as Ken Russell
’s The Lair of the White Worm
(1988), award-winning Merchant-Ivory
drama The Remains of the Day
(1993) and (as Frédéric Chopin
in) Impromptu
(1991) went largely unnoticed. He later called this phase of his career "hilarious," referring to his early films as "Europuddings, where you would have a French script, a Spanish director, and English actors. The script would usually be written by a foreigner, badly translated into English. And then they'd get English actors in, because they thought that was the way to sell it to America."
At 32, Grant claimed to be on the brink of giving up the acting profession but was surprised by the script of Four Weddings and a Funeral
(FWAAF). "If you read as many bad scripts as I did, you'd know how grateful you are when you come across one where the guy actually is funny," he later recalled. Released in 1994, FWAAF became the highest-grossing British film to date with a worldwide box office
in excess of $244 million, making Grant an overnight international star. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, and among numerous awards won by its cast and crew, it earned Grant his first and only Golden Globe Award
for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy and a BAFTA Award
for Best Actor in a Leading Role. It also temporarily typecast him as the lead character, Charles, a bohemian and debonair bachelor. Grant and Curtis saw it as an inside joke that the star, due to the parts he played, was assumed to have the personality of the screenwriter, who is known for writing about himself and his own life. Grant later expressed:
In July 1994, Grant signed a two-year production deal with Castle Rock Entertainment
and by October, he became founder and director of the UK-based Simian Films Limited. He appointed his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, as the head of development to look for prospective projects. Simian Films produced two Grant vehicles in the 1990s and lost a bid to produce About a Boy to Robert De Niro
's TriBeCa Productions
. The company closed its U.S. office in 2002 and Grant resigned as director in December 2005.
1995 saw the release of Grant's first studio-financed Hollywood
project, Chris Columbus
's comedy Nine Months
. Though a hit at the box office, it was almost universally panned by critics. The Washington Post called it a "grotesquely pandering caper" and singled out Grant's performance, as a child psychiatrist reacting unfavourably to his girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy, for his "insufferable muggings." The same year, he played leading roles as Emma Thompson
's suitor in Ang Lee
’s Academy Award-winning adaptation of Jane Austen
's Sense and Sensibility and as a cartographer in 1917 Wales in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
. In the same year he performed in the Academy Award-winning Restoration.
Grant then reunited with the director of FWAAF, Mike Newell
, for the tragicomedy An Awfully Big Adventure
that was labelled a "determinedly offbeat film" by The New York Times
. Grant portrayed a bitchy, supercilious director of a repertory company in post-World War II Liverpool
. Critic Roger Ebert
wrote, "It shows that he has range as an actor," but the San Francisco Chronicle disapproved on grounds that the film "plays like a vanity production for Grant." Janet Maslin
, praising Grant as "superb" and "a dashing cad under any circumstances," commented, "For him this film represents the road not taken. Made before Four Weddings and a Funeral was released, it captures Mr. Grant as the clever, versatile character actor he was then becoming, rather than the international dreamboat he is today." Grant made his debut as a film producer with the 1996 thriller Extreme Measures
, a commercial and critical failure.
After a three year hiatus, in 1999 he paired with Julia Roberts
in Notting Hill
, which was brought to theatres by much of the same team that was responsible for FWAAF. This new Working Title
production displaced FWAAF as the biggest British hit in the history of cinema, with earnings equalling $363 million worldwide. As it became exemplary of modern romantic comedies in mainstream culture, the film was also received well by critics. CNN reviewer Paul Clinton
said, "Notting Hill stands alone as another funny and heartwarming story about love against all odds." Reactions to Grant's Golden Globe-nominated performance were varied, with Salon.com
's Stephanie Zacharek criticising that, "Grant's performance stands as an emblem of what's wrong with Notting Hill. What's maddening about Grant is that he just never cuts the crap. He's become one of those actors who's all shambling self-caricature, from his twinkly crow's feet to the time-lapsed half century it takes him to actually get one of his lines out." The film provided both its stars a chance to satirise the woes of international notoriety, most noted of which was Grant's turn as a faux-journalist who sits through a dull press junket with, what the New York Times called, "a delightfully funny deadpan." Grant also released his second production output, a fish-out-of-water mob comedy Mickey Blue Eyes
, that year. It was dismissed by critics, performed modestly at the box office, and garnered its actor-producer mixed reviews for his starring role. Roger Ebert thought, "Hugh Grant is wrong for the role [and] strikes one wrong note and then another," whereas Kenneth Turan
, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said, "If he'd been on the Titanic, fewer lives would have been lost. If he'd accompanied Robert Scott to the South Pole, the explorer would have lived to be 100. That's how good Hugh Grant is at rescuing doomed ventures."
While promoting Woody Allen
’s Small Time Crooks
on NBC’s The Today Show in 2000, Grant told host Matt Lauer
, “It's my millennium of bastards.” In 2000, Grant also joined the Supervisory Board of IM Internationalmedia AG
, the powerful Munich
-based film and media company.
Small Time Crooks starred Grant, in the words of film critic Andrew Sarris
, as "a petty, petulant, faux-Pygmalion art dealer, David, [who] is one of the sleaziest and most unsympathetic characters Mr. Allen has ever created." In a role devoid of his comic attributes, the New York Times wrote: "Mr. Grant deftly imbues his character with exactly a perfect blend of charm and nasty calculation." A year later, his turn as a charming but womanising book publisher Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary
(2001) was proclaimed by Variety to be "as sly an overthrow of a star's polished posh – and nice – poster image as any comic turn in memory." The film, adapted from Helen Fielding
's novel of the same name, was an international hit, earning $281 million worldwide. Grant was, according to the Washington Post, fitting as "a cruel, manipulative cad, hiding behind the male god's countenance that he knows all too well."
Grant's "immaculate comic performance" (BBC) as the trust-funded womaniser, Will Freeman, in the film adaptation of Nick Hornby
's best-selling novel About a Boy
received raves from critics. Almost universally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, About a Boy
(2002) was determined by the Washington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings." Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs," while Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource." Released a day after the blockbuster Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
, About a Boy was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, making all of $129 million globally. The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle
named Grant its Best British Actor and GQ
honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2002. "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness." The New York Observer concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance." About a Boy also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Gone were the floppy locks that had become his trademark, with Grant now sporting a cropped haircut. He has retained this look since.
Grant was also paired with Sandra Bullock
in Warner Bros.
's Two Weeks Notice
, which made $199 million internationally but was judged poorly by professional reviewers. The Village Voice concluded that Grant's creation of a spoiled billionaire fronting a real estate business was "little more than a Britishism machine."
Two Weeks Notice was followed by the 2003 ensemble comedy, Love Actually
, headlined by Grant as the British Prime Minister. A Christmas release by Working Title Films, the film was promoted as "the ultimate romantic comedy" and accumulated $246 million at the international box office. It marked the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, who told the New York Times that Grant adamantly tempered the characterisation of the role to make his character more authoritative and less haplessly charming than earlier Curtis incarnations. Roger Ebert claimed that "Grant has flowered into an absolutely splendid romantic comedian" and has "so much self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as if he took the role to be a good sport." Film critic Rex Reed
, on the contrary, called Grant's performance "an oversexed bachelor spin on Tony Blair" as the star "flirted with himself in the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style."
A speech delivered by Grant in Love Actually – where he extols the virtues of Great Britain and refuses to cave to the pressure of its longstanding ally, the United States – was etched in the transatlantic memory as a satirical, wishful statement on the concurrent Bush
-Blair
relationship. Blair responded by saying, "I know there's a bit of us that would like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. But the difference between a good film and real life is that in real life there's the next day, the next year, the next lifetime to contemplate the ruinous consequences of easy applause."
In 2004, Grant reprised his role as Daniel Cleaver for a small part in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
, which, like its predecessor, made more than $262 million commercially. Gone from the screen for two years, Grant next reteamed with Paul Weitz
(About a Boy) for the black comedy
American Dreamz
(2006). Grant starred as the acerbic host of an American Idol
-like reality show where, according to Caryn James of the New York Times, "nothing is real ... except the black hole at the centre of the host's heart, as Mr. Grant takes Mr. Cowell's villainous act to its limit." American Dreamz failed financially but Grant was generously praised. He played his self-aggrandising character, an amalgam of Simon Cowell
and Ryan Seacrest
, with smarmy self-loathing. The Boston Globe proposed that this "just may be the great comic role that has always eluded Hugh Grant," and critic Carina Chocano said, "He is twice as enjoyable as the preening bad guy as he was as the bumbling good guy."
In 2007, Grant starred opposite Drew Barrymore
in a parody of pop culture and the music industry called Music and Lyrics
. The Associated Press
described it as "a weird little hybrid of a romantic comedy that's simultaneously too fluffy and not whimsical enough." Though he neither listens to music nor owns any CDs, Grant learned to sing, play the piano, dance (a few mannered steps) and studied the mannerisms of prominent musicians to prepare for his role as a has-been pop singer, based loosely on Andrew Ridgeley
. The Star-Ledger dismissed the performance, writing that "paper dolls have more depth." The film, with its revenues totalling $145 million, allowed Grant to mock disposable pop stardom and fleeting celebrity through its washed-up lead character. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Grant strikes precisely the right note with regard to Alex's career: He's too intelligent not to be a little embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame." In 2009, Grant starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans?
, which was a commercial as well as a critical failure.
In 2011, Grant reportedly turned down the starring role in Chuck Lorre's
Two and a Half Men
reboot, replacing Charlie Sheen
's vacated role. He turned down the role due to creative differences.
. He has called being a successful actor a mistake and has repeatedly talked of his hope that film stardom would just be "a phase" in his life, lasting no more than ten years. He pins his lack of interest in acting on two different thoughts: first, that he drifted into the job as a temporary joke at age 23 and finds it an immature way for a grown man to spend his time; and secondly, because he believes to have already given the one remarkable comic performance he had hoped to create on screen. A self-confessed "committed and passionate" perfectionist on a film set, Grant has constantly opted to describe himself as a reluctant actor, who chooses to be neutral about his career and works mostly with friends from previous collaborations. Richard Curtis
, a frequent collaborator, revealed that Grant is not fluid about the filmmaking process and tends to be unrelaxed while filming because he does not feel as though he's in the director's hands and prefers instead to take responsibility for giving a definitive performance. Grant is noted by co-workers for demanding endless takes until he achieves the desired shot according to his own standard.
A 2007 Vogue
profile of Grant referred to him as a man with a "professionally misanthropic mystique." The observation followed published facts such as that Grant conducts his interviews alone (without any publicists), and has derided focus groups, market research and overriding emphasis on the opening weekend. Grant decided to let go of his agent in 2006, ending a 10-year relationship with CAA. Besides proudly proclaiming in interviews to have never listened to external views on his career, he stated that he does not require the hand-holding an agent provides. A few months before firing his agent, he said, "They've known for years that I have total control. I've never taken any advice on anything."
He has stuck to the genre of comedy, especially the romantic comedy
, for the entirety of his mainstream film career and never ventures to play characters who are not British. While some film critics, such as the respected Roger Ebert, have defended the limited variety of his performances, others have dismissed him as a one-trick pony. Eric Fellner
, co-owner of Working Title Films and a long-time collaborator of Grant said, "His range hasn't been fully tested, but each performance is unique." A majority of Grant's popular films in the 1990s followed a similar plot that captured an optimistic bachelor experiencing a series of embarrassing incidences to find true love, often with an American woman. In earlier films, Grant was adept at plugging into the stereotype of a repressed Englishman for humorous effects, allowing him to gently satirise his characters as he summed them up and played against the type simultaneously. These performances were sometimes deemed overbearing, in the words of Washington Posts Rita Kempley, due to his "comic overreactions—the mugging
, the stuttering, the fluttering eyelids." She added: "He's got more tics than Benny Hill." Grant's penchant for conveying his characters' feelings with mannerisms, rather than direct emotions, has been one of the foremost objections raised against his acting style. Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post once stated that, to be effective as a comic performer, he must get "his jiving and shucking under control." Film historian David Thompson
wrote in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
about how it is merely itchy mannerisms that Grant equates with screen acting.
Grant's screen persona of later films, in the new millennium, gradually developed into a cynical, self-loathing cad. Claudia Puig of USA Today
celebrated this transformation with the observation that finally "gone [were] the self-conscious 'Aren't I adorable' mannerisms that seemed endearing at the start of [Grant's] film career but have grown cloying in more recent movies." Using his facial contortions and an affected stammer for varied comic purposes, According to Carina Chocano, amongst film critics, the two tropes most commonly associated with Grant are that he reinvented his screen persona in Bridget Jones's Diary and About a Boy and dreads the possibility of becoming a parody of himself.
His preference for levity over dramatic range has been a controversial topic in establishment circles, prompting him to say:
, "is maybe too clever for its own good as there is of him that's gorgeous and kind of woolly and flubsy." Filmmaker Paul Weitz, calling Grant funny, observed that "he perceives flaws in himself and other people, and then he cares about their humanity nonetheless." British newspapers regularly refer to him as grumpy.
, had falsely claimed that Grant verbally abused a young extra with a "foul-mouthed tongue lashing" on the set of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
.
On 27 April 2007, Grant accepted undisclosed damages from the Associated Newspapers over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday
on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles' "allegations and factual assertions are false." Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: "I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain." He went on to take the opportunity to stress, "I'm also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called 'close friends' or 'close sources' on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist."
for misdemeanour lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood
prostitute
Divine Brown. He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180, placed on two years' summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program.
The arrest occurred about two weeks before the release of Grant's first major studio film, Nine Months
, which he was scheduled to promote on several American television shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and, as recalled in former employee Don Sweeney's memoirs, "despite his arrest, Hugh Grant kept his appointment to appear on Jay's show." The interview was a career-making hit for Leno and Grant was singled out for not making excuses for the incident. He famously said:
On Larry King Live
, Grant declined the host Larry King
's repeated invitations to probe his psyche, saying that psychoanalysis was "more of an American syndrome" and he himself was "a bit old fashioned." He told the host: "I don't have excuses." Grant was appreciated for "his refreshing honesty" as he "faced the music and handled it with tongue [in] cheek."
In April 2007, Grant was arrested on allegations of assault made by paparazzo
Ian Whittaker. Grant made no official statement and did not comment on the incident. Charges were dropped on 1 June by the Crown Prosecution Service
on the grounds of "insufficient evidence."
entitled "The Bugger, Bugged" about a conversation following a chance encounter with Paul McMullan, former journalist and paparazzo for News of the World
. In unguarded comments which were secretly taped by Grant, McMullan alleged that editors at the Daily Mail
and News of the World, particularly Andy Coulson
, had ordered journalists to engage in illegal phone tapping and had done so with the full knowledge of senior British politicians. McMullan also said that every British Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher
onwards had cultivated a close relationship with Rupert Murdoch
and his senior executives. He stressed the friendship between David Cameron
and Rebekah Brooks (née Wade), agreeing when asked that both of them must have been aware of illegal phone tapping, and asserting that Cameron's inaction could be explained by self-interest:
When asked by Grant whether Cameron had encouraged the Metropolitan Police
to "drag their feet" on investigating illegal phone tapping by Murdoch's journalists, McMullan agreed that this had happened, but also stated that the police themselves had taken bribes from tabloid journalists, so had a motive to comply:
Grant's article attracted considerable interest, due to both the revelatory content of the taped conversation, and the novelty of Grant himself "turning the tables" on a tabloid journalist.
Whilst the allegations regarding the News of the World continued to receive coverage in the broadsheets and similar media (Grant appeared for example on BBC Radio 4
) it was only with the revelation that the voicemail of the then missing and subsequently murdered Millie Dowler had been hacked, and evidence in her murder enquiry had been deleted, that the coverage turned from media interest to widespread public (and eventually political) outrage. Grant became something of a spokesman against Murdoch's News Corporation
, culminating in a bravura performance on BBC television
's Question Time
in July 2011.
In 1987, while playing Lord Byron
in a Spanish production called Remando Al Viento (1988), Grant met actress Elizabeth Hurley
, who was cast in a supporting role as Byron's former lover Claire Clairmont
. Grant started dating the aspiring model while shooting and their relationship was subsequently the subject of much media attention. After 13 years together, the two made "a mutual and amicable decision" to split in May 2000. In 2004, he began dating Jemima Khan
under the intense scrutiny of British tabloids
. Three years later, in February 2007, Grant's publicist announced that the couple had "decided to split amicably." The spokesman added, "Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima."
In November 2011, it was announced that Grant had become a father to a baby girl earlier that fall. The identity of the mother, with whom Grant had a "fleeting affair" according to his publicist, was not at first announced; however, it was later revealed to be a Chinese woman named Tinglan Hong. Furthermore, the publicist went on to say that "while this was not planned, Hugh could not be happier or more supportive. He and the mother have discussed everything and are on very friendly terms."
A famous "golf
ing addict", Grant is a scratch golfer and is a regular at pro-am tournaments with membership at the Sunningdale Golf Club. He is also frequently pictured by the paparazzi at the famed Scottish golf courses in St Andrews
, Kingsbarns
and Carnoustie
. Highly competitive, he reportedly plays with a lot of money at stake. As a young boy, he played rugby union
on his school's first XV team at centre and played football as an avid fan of Fulham F.C.
. He is also a fan of Scottish side Rangers F.C.
thanks to his grandfather who was Scottish. He continued to play in a Sunday-morning football league in south-west London after college and remains an "impassioned Fulham supporter." Grant's other interests include snooker
and tennis.
a charity that publishes the websites Healthtalkonline and Youthhealthtalk; and a Patron of the Fynvola Foundation, named after his late mother, a charity which provides nursing and care for older learning-disabled people. He is also a supporter of Marie Curie Cancer Care
, whose Great Daffodil Appeal he promoted in March 2008.
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
, a BAFTA, and an Honorary César
Honorary César
The César Award is France's national film award. Recipients are selected by the members of the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinema. The following are the recipients of the honorary César award since 1976.- See also :**...
. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's sleeper hit
Sleeper hit
A sleeper hit, a.k.a. surprise hit , refers to a film, book, single, album, TV show, or video game that gains unexpected success or recognition...
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
(1994). He used this breakthrough role as a frequent cinematic persona during the 1990s to deliver comic performances in mainstream films like Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes is a 1999 film directed by Kelly Makin. Hugh Grant stars as Michael Felgate, an English auctioneer living in New York City who becomes entangled in his soon-to-be father in-law's mafia connections...
(1999) and Notting Hill
Notting Hill (film)
Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...
(1999). By the turn of the 21st century, he had established himself as a leading man
Leading man
Leading man or leading gentleman is an informal term for the actor who plays a love interest to the leading actress in a film or play. A leading man is usually an all rounder; capable of singing, dancing, and acting at a professional level, but never outshining his female co-star...
skilled with a satirical comic talent. Since the 2000s, Grant has expanded his oeuvre with critically acclaimed turns as a cad
Rake (character)
A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
in Bridget Jones's Diary
Bridget Jones's Diary (film)
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 2001 British romantic comedy film based on Helen Fielding's novel of the same name. The adaptation stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget, Hugh Grant as the caddish Daniel Cleaver, and Colin Firth as Bridget's "true love", Mark Darcy...
(2001), About A Boy
About a Boy (film)
About a Boy is a 2002 comedy-drama film directed by brothers Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, based on the novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. The film stars Golden Globe winner Hugh Grant as Will, Nicholas Hoult as Marcus, Academy Award nominee Toni Collette as Fiona, and Academy Award winner Rachel...
(2002), Love Actually
Love Actually
Love Actually is a 2003 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress...
(2003), and American Dreamz
American Dreamz
American Dreamz is a 2006 comedy/parody film that satirizes both American politics and popular entertainment.Director/producer/writer Paul Weitz has stated that the movie is meant to satirize both the TV show American Idol and the Bush Administration...
(2006).
Within the film industry, Grant is cited as an anti-film star who approaches his roles like a character actor
Character actor
A character actor is one who predominantly plays unusual or eccentric characters. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a character actor as "an actor who specializes in character parts", defining character part in turn as "an acting role displaying pronounced or unusual characteristics or...
, with the ability to make acting look effortless. Hallmarks of his comic skills include a nonchalant touch of irony
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
/sarcasm
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is “a sharp, bitter, or cutting expression or remark; a bitter jibe or taunt.” Though irony and understatement is usually the immediate context, most authorities distinguish sarcasm from irony; however, others argue that sarcasm may or often does involve irony or employs...
and studied physical mannerisms as well as his precisely-timed dialogue delivery and facial expressions. The entertainment media's coverage of Grant's life off the big screen has often overshadowed his work as a thespian. He has been vocal about his disrespect for the profession of acting, and in his disdain towards the culture of celebrity and hostility towards the media. In a career spanning 30 years, Grant has repeatedly claimed that acting is not a true calling but just a job he fell into.
Early life and ancestry
Grant was born at Hammersmith HospitalHammersmith Hospital
Hammersmith Hospital is a major teaching hospital in West London. It is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and is associated with the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine...
in Hammersmith
Hammersmith
Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in west London, England, in the United Kingdom, approximately five miles west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England, the second son of Fynvola Susan (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
MacLean
Clan MacLean
Clan Maclean is a Highland Scottish clan. They are one of the oldest clans in the Highlands and owned large tracts of land in Argyll as well as the Inner Hebrides. Many early MacLeans became famous for their honour, strength and courage in battle. They were involved in many clan skirmishes with...
; b. Wickham
Wickham
Wickham, formerly spelled Wykeham, is a small historic village and civil parish in Hampshire, southern England, located about three miles north of Fareham. It is within the City of Winchester local government district, although it is considerably closer to Fareham than to Winchester...
, Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
, 11 October 1933; m. Boxgrove
Boxgrove
Boxgrove is a village and civil parish in the Chichester District of the English county of West Sussex, about five kilometres north east of the city of Chichester. The village is just south of the A285 road which follows the line of the Roman road Stane Street.The parish has an area of...
, Sussex
Sussex
Sussex , from the Old English Sūþsēaxe , is an historic county in South East England corresponding roughly in area to the ancient Kingdom of Sussex. It is bounded on the north by Surrey, east by Kent, south by the English Channel, and west by Hampshire, and is divided for local government into West...
, 6 July 1957; d. Hounslow
London Borough of Hounslow
-Political composition:Since the borough was formed it has been controlled by the Labour Party on all but two occasions. In 1968 the Conservatives formed a majority for the first and last time to date until they lost control to Labour in 1971. Labour subsequently lost control of the council in the...
, London, July 2001) and Captain
Captain (British Army and Royal Marines)
Captain is a junior officer rank of the British Army and Royal Marines. It ranks above Lieutenant and below Major and has a NATO ranking code of OF-2. The rank is equivalent to a Lieutenant in the Royal Navy and to a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force...
James Murray Grant
Clan Grant
-Origins:The Grants are one of the clans of Siol Alpin, and descend from the 9th century Kenneth MacAlpin, King of Scots; and also of Norse origin, from settlers who are the descents of Haakon inn Riki Sigurdarsson , Jarl of Hladr, Protector of Norway ,-Origins:The Grants are one of the clans of...
(b. 1929). Grant has an older brother, James Grant, who is a banker. Genealogist Antony Adolph described Grant's family history as "a colourful Anglo-Scottish tapestry of warriors, empire-builders and aristocracy," including William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan
William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan
William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan was a Jacobite army officer and fourth son of Sir John Drummond of Machany and Margaret, daughter of Sir William Stewart of Innernytie.- Life :...
and Dr. James Stewart. John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl
John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl
John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl, KT was a leading Scottish royalist and defender of the Stuarts during the English Civil War of the 1640s, until after the rise to power of William and Mary in 1689...
, Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham
Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham
Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, PC , Lord Chancellor of England, was descended from the old family of Finch, many of whose members had attained high legal eminence, and was the eldest son of Sir Heneage Finch, recorder of London, by his first wife Frances Bell, daughter of Sir Edmond Bell of...
, Rt. Hon. Sir Evan Nepean
Evan Nepean
Sir Evan Nepean, 1st Baronet PC was a British politician and colonial administrator.-Early career:...
, and a sister of former British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval
Spencer Perceval, KC was a British statesman and First Lord of the Treasury, making him de facto Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated...
, are a few of his notable maternal ancestors. Grant's grandfather, Major James Murray Grant, DSO
Distinguished Service Order
The Distinguished Service Order is a military decoration of the United Kingdom, and formerly of other parts of the British Commonwealth and Empire, awarded for meritorious or distinguished service by officers of the armed forces during wartime, typically in actual combat.Instituted on 6 September...
, a native of Inverness
Inverness
Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...
in Scotland, was decorated for bravery and leadership at Dunkirk during World War II.
Grant's father, Capt. Grant, was trained at Sandhurst
Royal Military Academy Sandhurst
The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst , commonly known simply as Sandhurst, is a British Army officer initial training centre located in Sandhurst, Berkshire, England...
and served with the Seaforth Highlanders
Seaforth Highlanders
The Seaforth Highlanders was a historic regiment of the British Army associated with large areas of the northern Highlands of Scotland. The Seaforth Highlanders have varied in size from two battalions to seventeen battalions during the Great War...
for eight years in Malaya
Peninsular Malaysia
Peninsular Malaysia , also known as West Malaysia , is the part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula. Its area is . It shares a land border with Thailand in the north. To the south is the island of Singapore. Across the Strait of Malacca to the west lies the island of Sumatra...
, Germany and Scotland. Capt. Grant gained the rank of Officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the service of the Seaforth Highlanders
Seaforth Highlanders
The Seaforth Highlanders was a historic regiment of the British Army associated with large areas of the northern Highlands of Scotland. The Seaforth Highlanders have varied in size from two battalions to seventeen battalions during the Great War...
and lived at Findhorn
Findhorn
Findhorn is a village in Moray, Scotland. It is located on the eastern shore of Findhorn Bay and immediately south of the Moray Firth. Findhorn is 3 miles northwest of Kinloss, and about 5 miles by road from Forres....
, Morayshire in 1957, and at Sutton, London
Sutton, London
Sutton is a large suburban town in southwest London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Sutton. It is located south-southwest of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. The town was connected to central London by...
in 1974. He ran a carpet firm, pursued hobbies such as golf and painting watercolours
Watercolor painting
Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...
, and raised his family in Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
, west London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane. In September 2006, a collection of Capt. Grant's paintings was hosted by the John Martin Gallery in a charity exhibition, organised by his famous son, called "James Grant: 30 Years of Watercolours." His mother, Fynvola, was the great-granddaughter of Sir Evan Colville Nepean (CB
Order of the Bath
The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the elaborate mediæval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
), whose father, Rev. Canon Evan Nepean, served as the Canon of Westminster and was Chaplain In Ordinary
Ecclesiastical Household
The Ecclesiastical Household is a part of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. Reflecting the different constitutions of the Churches of England and of Scotland, there are separate Ecclesiastical Households in each nation.-England:...
to Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
. She worked as a schoolteacher and taught Latin, French and music for more than 30 years in the state schools of west London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. She died at the age of 65, 18 months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
.
Grant's accent
Received Pronunciation
Received Pronunciation , also called the Queen's English, Oxford English or BBC English, is the accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard varieties and their regional forms...
is an inheritance from his mother and, on Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio
Inside the Actors Studio is a series on the Bravo cable television channel, hosted by James Lipton. It is produced and directed by Jeff Wurtz; the executive producer is James Lipton. The program, which premiered in 1994, is distributed internationally by CABLEready and is broadcast in 125 countries...
in 2002, he credited her with "any acting genes that [he] might have." Both his parents were children of military families, but, despite his parents' backgrounds, Grant has stated that his family was not always affluent while he was growing up. Grant spent his childhood summers shooting and hunting with his grandfather in Scotland. Grant's elder brother, James "Jamie" Grant, is a successful banker as Managing Director, Head of Healthcare, Consumer, & Retail Investment Banking Coverage, at JPMorgan Chase in New York.
Education
Grant started his education at Hogarth Primary School in Chiswick but then moved to St Peters Primary School in Hammersmith. From 1969 to 1978, he attended Latymer Upper SchoolLatymer Upper School
Latymer Upper School, founded by Edward Latymer in 1624, is a selective independent school in Hammersmith, West London, England, lying between King Street and the Thames. It is a day school for 1,130 pupils – boys and girls aged 11–18; there is also the Latymer Preparatory School for boys and girls...
in Hammersmith on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket and football for the school. He also represented Latymer on the popular quiz show, Top of the Form, an academic competition between two teams of four secondary school students each. Chris Hammond, his form teacher in 1975 and later the assistant head of Latymer, told People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
magazine that Grant was "a clever boy among clever boys." In 1979, he won the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford
New College, Oxford
New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.- Overview :The College's official name, College of St Mary, is the same as that of the older Oriel College; hence, it has been referred to as the "New College of St Mary", and is now almost always...
where he starred in his first film, Privileged
Privileged (1982 film)
Privileged is a 1982 film, the first theatrical release from the Oxford Film Foundation and was Hugh Grant's screen debut playing Lord Adrian...
, produced by the Oxford University Film Foundation
Oxford University Film Foundation
The Oxford University Film Foundation was founded in 1981 by Michael Hoffman, Peter Schwabach and Rick Stevenson. Its first production was the 1982 feature film Privileged, starring Hugh Grant, James Wilby, Imogen Stubbs and Mark Williams...
, OUFF. He studied English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
and graduated with 2:1 honours. Actress Anna Chancellor
Anna Chancellor
-Family:Chancellor was born in Richmond, London, England, the daughter of the Hon. Mary Alice Jolliffe and John Paget Chancellor. Through her mother's mother, Lady Perdita Rose Mary Asquith, Chancellor is the great-granddaughter of The Hon. Raymond Aquith and the great-great-granddaughter of Prime...
, who knew Grant at Oxford, has recalled, "I first met Hugh at a party at Oxford. There was something magical about him. He was a star even then, without having done anything." He received an offer from the Courtauld Institute of Art
Courtauld Institute of Art
The Courtauld Institute of Art is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art. The Courtauld is one of the premier centres for the teaching of art history in the world; it was the only History of Art department in the UK to be awarded a top...
, University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
to pursue a PhD in the history of art, but decided not to take the offer because he failed to secure a grant. Viewing acting as nothing more than a creative outlet, he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society
Oxford University Dramatic Society
The Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...
and starred in a successful touring production of Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season...
. Hugh Grant funds The Fynvola Grant Scholarship at Latymer Upper School
Latymer Upper School
Latymer Upper School, founded by Edward Latymer in 1624, is a selective independent school in Hammersmith, West London, England, lying between King Street and the Thames. It is a day school for 1,130 pupils – boys and girls aged 11–18; there is also the Latymer Preparatory School for boys and girls...
in memory of his mother who was a teacher in West London.
Young earner
After making his debut as Hughie Grant in the Oxford-financed PrivilegedPrivileged (1982 film)
Privileged is a 1982 film, the first theatrical release from the Oxford Film Foundation and was Hugh Grant's screen debut playing Lord Adrian...
(1982), Grant dabbled in a variety of jobs: he wrote book reviews, worked as assistant groundsman at Fulham Football Club
Fulham F.C.
Fulham Football Club is a professional English Premier League club based in southwest London Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Founded in 1879, they play in the Premier League, their 11th current season...
, tried his hand at tutoring, wrote comedy sketches for TV shows, and was hired by Talkback Productions
Talkback Productions
Talkback Productions was formed in 1981 by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. The company is one of the UK’s leading production companies and part of the RTL Group, a major European broadcast and content company....
to write and produce radio commercials for products such as Mighty White bread and Red Stripe lager. To obtain his Equity card, he joined the repertory theatre Nottingham Playhouse
Nottingham Playhouse
The Nottingham Playhouse is a theatre in Nottingham, England. It was first established as a repertory theatre in the 1950s when it operated from a former cinema. Directors during this period included Val May and Frank Dunlop.-The building:...
and lived for a year at Park Terrace in The Park Estate, Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
. Bored with small acting parts, he created his own comedy revue called The Jockeys of Norfolk with friends Chris Lang
Chris Lang
Chris Lang is a writer, actor, and producer for British television.He has written for British television shows including 'Alas Smith and Jones, The Bill, Casualty, Soldier Soldier, The Knock, Reach for the Moon, The Glass, Sirens, Unconditional Love, P.O.W., Amnesia, Lawless,The Palace, 'Primeval...
and Andy Taylor. The group toured London’s pub comedy circuit with stops at The George IV in Chiswick
Chiswick
Chiswick is a large suburb of west London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It is located on a meander of the River Thames, west of Charing Cross and is one of 35 major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with...
, Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice
Maida Vale
Maida Vale is a residential district in West London between St John's Wood and Kilburn. It is part of the City of Westminster. The area is mostly residential, and mainly affluent, consisting of many large late Victorian and Edwardian blocks of mansion flats...
and The King's Head in Islington
Islington
Islington is a neighbourhood in Greater London, England and forms the central district of the London Borough of Islington. It is a district of Inner London, spanning from Islington High Street to Highbury Fields, encompassing the area around the busy Upper Street...
. Starting on a low note, The Jockeys of Norfolk eventually proved a hit at the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival
The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...
after their sketch on the Nativity
Nativity of Jesus
The Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the Canonical gospels and in various apocryphal texts....
, told as an Ealing
Ealing Studios
Ealing Studios is a television and film production company and facilities provider at Ealing Green in West London. Will Barker bought the White Lodge on Ealing Green in 1902 as a base for film making, and films have been made on the site ever since...
comedy, garnered them a spot on the BBC2
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
TV show called Edinburgh Nights. During this time, Grant also appeared in theatre productions of plays such as An Inspector Calls
An Inspector Calls
An Inspector Calls is a play written by English dramatist J. B. Priestley, first performed in 1945 in the Soviet Union and 1946 in the UK. It is considered to be one of Priestley's best known works for the stage and one of the classics of mid-20th century English theatre...
, Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan
Lady Windermere's Fan, A Play About a Good Woman is a four act comedy by Oscar Wilde, first produced 22 February 1892 at the St James's Theatre in London. The play was first published in 1893...
, and Coriolanus
Coriolanus (play)
Coriolanus is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1605 and 1608. The play is based on the life of the legendary Roman leader, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus.-Characters:*Caius Martius, later surnamed Coriolanus...
.
Career
Grant's first leading role came in Merchant-IvoryMerchant Ivory Productions
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Their films were for the most part produced by the former, directed by the latter, and scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, with the noted exception of a few films. The films were often...
's 1987 Edwardian
Edwardian period
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era...
drama, Maurice
Maurice (film)
Maurice is a 1987 British film based on the novel of the same title by E. M. Forster. It is a tale of homosexual love in early 20th century England, following its main character Maurice Hall from his school days through university until he is united with his life partner.It was produced by Ismail...
, adapted from E.M. Forster's novel of the same name. He and co-star James Wilby
James Wilby
James Jonathon Wilby is an English film, television and theatre actor.-Early life and education:He was born in Rangoon, Burma to a corporate executive father...
shared the Volpi Cup for best actor at the Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
for their portrayals of Cantabrigian
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
collegians Clive Durham and Maurice Hall, respectively. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Grant balanced small roles on television with rare film work, which included a supporting role in The Dawning
The Dawning
The Dawning is a 1988 British film, based on Jennifer Johnston's novel, The Old Jest which depicts the Irish War of Independence through the eyes of the Anglo-Irish landlord class...
(1988), opposite Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
and a turn as Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
in a Goya Award-winning Spanish production called Remando al viento (1988). He also portrayed some other real life figures during in his early career such as Charles Heidsieck
Charles Heidsieck
Charles Camille Heidsieck was a 19th-century French Champagne merchant who founded the Champagne firm Charles Heidsieck in 1851. He is credited with popularizing Champagne in the United States and was known as "Champagne Charlie" during his stay...
in Champagne Charlie and as Hugh Cholmondeley
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere
Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere KCMG , styled The Honourable from birth until 1887, was a British peer. He was one of the first and most influential British settlers in Kenya....
in BAFTA Award-nominated White Mischief
White Mischief
White Mischief is a 1987 film dramatising the events of the Happy Valley murder case in Kenya in 1941, when Sir Henry "Jock" Delves Broughton was tried for the murder of Josslyn Hay, Earl of Erroll....
.
In 1990, he made a cameo appearance
Cameo appearance
A cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television...
in the sport/crime drama The Big Man
The Big Man
This article is about the film. For the saxophonist with that nickname, see Clarence Clemons.The Big Man is a 1990 film produced by Miramax Films. It starred Liam Neeson, Joanne Whalley and Billy Connolly and the film's score was composed by Ennio Morricone. It was featured in FlixMix's Ultimate...
, opposite Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
, and in which Grant assumed a Scottish accent. The film explores the life of a Scottish miner (Neeson) who becomes unemployed during a union strike. In 1991, he played Julie Andrews
Julie Andrews
Dame Julia Elizabeth Andrews, DBE is an English film and stage actress, singer, and author. She is the recipient of Golden Globe, Emmy, Grammy, BAFTA, People's Choice Award, Theatre World Award, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award honors...
' gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
son in the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
made-for-television film Our Sons
Our Sons
Our Sons is a 1991 made-for-TV movie starring Julie Andrews and Ann-Margret as two mothers of gay sons, one of whom is dying of AIDS. As a small town waitress, Ann-Margret's character must overcome her own homophobia and learn to love her son unconditionally. In the process, she cements a lasting...
.
In 1992, he appeared in Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
's film Bitter Moon
Bitter Moon
Bitter Moon is a 1992 film starring Hugh Grant, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emmanuelle Seigner and Peter Coyote and directed by Roman Polanski. The film is known as in France. The script is inspired by a book with the same name, written by the French author Pascal Bruckner. The score was composed by...
, portraying a fastidious and proper British tourist who is married, but finds himself enticed by the sexual hedonism of a seductive French woman and her embittered, paraplegic American husband. The film was called an "anti-romantic opus of sexual obsession and cruelty" by the Washington Post. His other work in period pieces such as Ken Russell
Ken Russell
Henry Kenneth Alfred "Ken" Russell was an English film director, known for his pioneering work in television and film and for his flamboyant and controversial style. He attracted criticism as being obsessed with sexuality and the church...
’s The Lair of the White Worm
The Lair of the White Worm (film)
The Lair of the White Worm is a 1988 film based loosely on the novel by Bram Stoker of the same name and drawing upon the English myth of the Lambton Worm...
(1988), award-winning Merchant-Ivory
Merchant Ivory Productions
Merchant Ivory Productions is a film company founded in 1961 by producer Ismail Merchant and director James Ivory. Their films were for the most part produced by the former, directed by the latter, and scripted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, with the noted exception of a few films. The films were often...
drama The Remains of the Day
The Remains of the Day (film)
The Remains of the Day is a 1993 Merchant Ivory film adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols and John Calley. It starred Anthony Hopkins as Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton with James Fox,...
(1993) and (as Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
in) Impromptu
Impromptu (1991 film)
Impromptu is a 1991 movie, based on a screenplay written by Sarah Kernochan, directed by James Lapine, produced by Daniel A. Sherkow and Stuart Oken, and starring Hugh Grant as Chopin and Judy Davis as George Sand. This movie was rated PG-13 by the MPAA...
(1991) went largely unnoticed. He later called this phase of his career "hilarious," referring to his early films as "Europuddings, where you would have a French script, a Spanish director, and English actors. The script would usually be written by a foreigner, badly translated into English. And then they'd get English actors in, because they thought that was the way to sell it to America."
At 32, Grant claimed to be on the brink of giving up the acting profession but was surprised by the script of Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It was the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to feature Hugh Grant...
(FWAAF). "If you read as many bad scripts as I did, you'd know how grateful you are when you come across one where the guy actually is funny," he later recalled. Released in 1994, FWAAF became the highest-grossing British film to date with a worldwide box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....
in excess of $244 million, making Grant an overnight international star. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, and among numerous awards won by its cast and crew, it earned Grant his first and only Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical Or Comedy and a BAFTA Award
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
for Best Actor in a Leading Role. It also temporarily typecast him as the lead character, Charles, a bohemian and debonair bachelor. Grant and Curtis saw it as an inside joke that the star, due to the parts he played, was assumed to have the personality of the screenwriter, who is known for writing about himself and his own life. Grant later expressed:
In July 1994, Grant signed a two-year production deal with Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment
Castle Rock Entertainment is a film and television production company founded in 1987 by Martin Shafer, director Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick and Alan Horn. It is a subsidiary of Warner Bros...
and by October, he became founder and director of the UK-based Simian Films Limited. He appointed his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, as the head of development to look for prospective projects. Simian Films produced two Grant vehicles in the 1990s and lost a bid to produce About a Boy to Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
's TriBeCa Productions
TriBeCa Productions
Tribeca Productions, a film and television production company, was co-founded in 1989 by actor Robert De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal in the lower Manhattan neighborhood of TriBeCa...
. The company closed its U.S. office in 2002 and Grant resigned as director in December 2005.
1995 saw the release of Grant's first studio-financed Hollywood
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
project, Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus (filmmaker)
Christopher Joseph "Chris" Columbus is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Columbus had his largest success with the first two films in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, along with Home Alone, the last...
's comedy Nine Months
Nine Months
Nine Months is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Chris Columbus. It stars Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, Jeff Goldblum, and Robin Williams. The movie is a US remake of the French movie Neuf mois and served as Grant's first US starring role. It was filmed on location in...
. Though a hit at the box office, it was almost universally panned by critics. The Washington Post called it a "grotesquely pandering caper" and singled out Grant's performance, as a child psychiatrist reacting unfavourably to his girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy, for his "insufferable muggings." The same year, he played leading roles as Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson
Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
's suitor in Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
’s Academy Award-winning adaptation of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
's Sense and Sensibility and as a cartographer in 1917 Wales in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is a 1995 film written by Ivor Monger and directed by Christopher Monger. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival....
. In the same year he performed in the Academy Award-winning Restoration.
Grant then reunited with the director of FWAAF, Mike Newell
Mike Newell (director)
Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. After the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Newell became the third most commercially successful British director in recent years, behind Christopher Nolan...
, for the tragicomedy An Awfully Big Adventure
An Awfully Big Adventure
An Awfully Big Adventure is a 1995 British coming-of-age film directed by Mike Newell. The story focuses on a teenage girl who joins a seedy theatre troupe in Liverpool...
that was labelled a "determinedly offbeat film" by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
. Grant portrayed a bitchy, supercilious director of a repertory company in post-World War II Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
. Critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote, "It shows that he has range as an actor," but the San Francisco Chronicle disapproved on grounds that the film "plays like a vanity production for Grant." Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
, praising Grant as "superb" and "a dashing cad under any circumstances," commented, "For him this film represents the road not taken. Made before Four Weddings and a Funeral was released, it captures Mr. Grant as the clever, versatile character actor he was then becoming, rather than the international dreamboat he is today." Grant made his debut as a film producer with the 1996 thriller Extreme Measures
Extreme Measures
Extreme Measures is a 1996 thriller film based on Michael Palmer's 1991 novel of the same name, about the ethics of how far we are willing to go, and how much we are willing to sacrifice, in order to cure the world's ills.-Cast:...
, a commercial and critical failure.
After a three year hiatus, in 1999 he paired with Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
in Notting Hill
Notting Hill (film)
Notting Hill is a 1999 British romantic comedy film set in Notting Hill, London, released on 21 May 1999. The screenplay was by Richard Curtis, who had written Four Weddings and a Funeral. It was produced by Duncan Kenworthy and directed by Roger Michell...
, which was brought to theatres by much of the same team that was responsible for FWAAF. This new Working Title
Working Title Films
Working Title Films is a British film production company, based in London, UK. The company was founded by Tim Bevan and Sarah Radclyffe in 1983. It produces feature films and several television productions, including films starring comic actor Rowan Atkinson...
production displaced FWAAF as the biggest British hit in the history of cinema, with earnings equalling $363 million worldwide. As it became exemplary of modern romantic comedies in mainstream culture, the film was also received well by critics. CNN reviewer Paul Clinton
Paul Clinton
Paul Clinton was an American film critic. He served as CNN.com film critic for 20 years. He was the co-founder of the Broadcast Film Critics Association ....
said, "Notting Hill stands alone as another funny and heartwarming story about love against all odds." Reactions to Grant's Golden Globe-nominated performance were varied, with Salon.com
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
's Stephanie Zacharek criticising that, "Grant's performance stands as an emblem of what's wrong with Notting Hill. What's maddening about Grant is that he just never cuts the crap. He's become one of those actors who's all shambling self-caricature, from his twinkly crow's feet to the time-lapsed half century it takes him to actually get one of his lines out." The film provided both its stars a chance to satirise the woes of international notoriety, most noted of which was Grant's turn as a faux-journalist who sits through a dull press junket with, what the New York Times called, "a delightfully funny deadpan." Grant also released his second production output, a fish-out-of-water mob comedy Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes
Mickey Blue Eyes is a 1999 film directed by Kelly Makin. Hugh Grant stars as Michael Felgate, an English auctioneer living in New York City who becomes entangled in his soon-to-be father in-law's mafia connections...
, that year. It was dismissed by critics, performed modestly at the box office, and garnered its actor-producer mixed reviews for his starring role. Roger Ebert thought, "Hugh Grant is wrong for the role [and] strikes one wrong note and then another," whereas Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said, "If he'd been on the Titanic, fewer lives would have been lost. If he'd accompanied Robert Scott to the South Pole, the explorer would have lived to be 100. That's how good Hugh Grant is at rescuing doomed ventures."
While promoting Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
’s Small Time Crooks
Small Time Crooks
Small Time Crooks is a 2000 American crime-comedy film directed, written, and starring Woody Allen, along with Tracey Ullman and Hugh Grant.-Plot:...
on NBC’s The Today Show in 2000, Grant told host Matt Lauer
Matt Lauer
Matthew Todd "Matt" Lauer . is an American television journalist best known as the host of NBC's The Today Show since 1997. He was previously a news anchor in New York and a local talk-show host in Boston, Philadelphia, Providence and Richmond...
, “It's my millennium of bastards.” In 2000, Grant also joined the Supervisory Board of IM Internationalmedia AG
Intermedia (production company)
Intermedia is a film production company, wholly owned by IM Internationalmedia AG.The company mostly acts as a co-producer, funding films through the IMF funds.-History:...
, the powerful Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
-based film and media company.
Andrew Sarris
Andrew Sarris is an American film critic and a leading proponent of the auteur theory of criticism.-Career:Sarris is generally credited with popularizing the auteur theory in the U.S...
, as "a petty, petulant, faux-Pygmalion art dealer, David, [who] is one of the sleaziest and most unsympathetic characters Mr. Allen has ever created." In a role devoid of his comic attributes, the New York Times wrote: "Mr. Grant deftly imbues his character with exactly a perfect blend of charm and nasty calculation." A year later, his turn as a charming but womanising book publisher Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary
Bridget Jones's Diary (film)
Bridget Jones's Diary is a 2001 British romantic comedy film based on Helen Fielding's novel of the same name. The adaptation stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget, Hugh Grant as the caddish Daniel Cleaver, and Colin Firth as Bridget's "true love", Mark Darcy...
(2001) was proclaimed by Variety to be "as sly an overthrow of a star's polished posh – and nice – poster image as any comic turn in memory." The film, adapted from Helen Fielding
Helen Fielding
Helen Fielding is an English novelist and screenwriter, best known as the creator of the fictional character Bridget Jones, a sequence of novels and films that chronicle the life of a thirtysomething single woman in London as she tries to make sense of life and love.Her novels Bridget Jones's...
's novel of the same name, was an international hit, earning $281 million worldwide. Grant was, according to the Washington Post, fitting as "a cruel, manipulative cad, hiding behind the male god's countenance that he knows all too well."
Grant's "immaculate comic performance" (BBC) as the trust-funded womaniser, Will Freeman, in the film adaptation of Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby
Nick Hornby is an English novelist, essayist and screenwriter. He is best known for the novels High Fidelity, About a Boy, and for the football memoir Fever Pitch. His work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists.-Life and career:Hornby was...
's best-selling novel About a Boy
About a Boy
About a Boy is a 1998 novel by British writer Nick Hornby. It was adapted into a film of the same name in 2002.-Plot summary:The novel is about Will Freeman, a 36-year-old bachelor, and Marcus, an introverted, bullied 12-year-old who lives alone with his suicidal mother, Fiona...
received raves from critics. Almost universally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, About a Boy
About a Boy (film)
About a Boy is a 2002 comedy-drama film directed by brothers Chris Weitz and Paul Weitz, based on the novel of the same name by Nick Hornby. The film stars Golden Globe winner Hugh Grant as Will, Nicholas Hoult as Marcus, Academy Award nominee Toni Collette as Fiona, and Academy Award winner Rachel...
(2002) was determined by the Washington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings." Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs," while Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource." Released a day after the blockbuster Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones is a 2002 American epic space opera film directed by George Lucas and written by Lucas and Jonathan Hales. It is the fifth film to be released in the Star Wars saga and the second in terms of the series' internal chronology...
, About a Boy was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, making all of $129 million globally. The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle
London Film Critics Circle
The London Film Critics' Circle is the name by which the Film Section of The Critics' Circle is known internationally.The word London was added because it was thought the term Critics' Circle Film Awards lacked meaning — for people in LA for example — and the Film Section wished its annual Awards...
named Grant its Best British Actor and GQ
GQ (magazine)
GQ is a monthly men's magazine focusing on fashion, style, and culture for men, through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, sports, technology, and books...
honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2002. "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness." The New York Observer concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance." About a Boy also marked a notable change in Grant's boyish look. Gone were the floppy locks that had become his trademark, with Grant now sporting a cropped haircut. He has retained this look since.
Grant was also paired with Sandra Bullock
Sandra Bullock
Sandra Annette Bullock is an Academy Award winning American actress and producer who rose to fame in the 1990s after roles in successful films such as Demolition Man, Speed, The Net, A Time to Kill, and While You Were Sleeping. She continued with films such as Miss Congeniality, The Lake House,...
in Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
's Two Weeks Notice
Two Weeks Notice
Two Weeks Notice is a 2002 romantic comedy film starring Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock from Warner Bros. Pictures. The film was written and directed by Marc Lawrence. Upon release, the film received a successful box office run both in the United States and globally.-Plot:Lucy Kelson is a...
, which made $199 million internationally but was judged poorly by professional reviewers. The Village Voice concluded that Grant's creation of a spoiled billionaire fronting a real estate business was "little more than a Britishism machine."
Two Weeks Notice was followed by the 2003 ensemble comedy, Love Actually
Love Actually
Love Actually is a 2003 British romantic comedy film written and directed by Richard Curtis. The screenplay delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving a wide variety of individuals, many of whom are shown to be interlinked as their tales progress...
, headlined by Grant as the British Prime Minister. A Christmas release by Working Title Films, the film was promoted as "the ultimate romantic comedy" and accumulated $246 million at the international box office. It marked the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, who told the New York Times that Grant adamantly tempered the characterisation of the role to make his character more authoritative and less haplessly charming than earlier Curtis incarnations. Roger Ebert claimed that "Grant has flowered into an absolutely splendid romantic comedian" and has "so much self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as if he took the role to be a good sport." Film critic Rex Reed
Rex Reed
Rex Taylor Reed is an American film critic and former co-host of the syndicated television show At the Movies. He currently writes the column "On the Town with Rex Reed" for The New York Observer.-Life and career:...
, on the contrary, called Grant's performance "an oversexed bachelor spin on Tony Blair" as the star "flirted with himself in the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style."
A speech delivered by Grant in Love Actually – where he extols the virtues of Great Britain and refuses to cave to the pressure of its longstanding ally, the United States – was etched in the transatlantic memory as a satirical, wishful statement on the concurrent Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
-Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
relationship. Blair responded by saying, "I know there's a bit of us that would like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. But the difference between a good film and real life is that in real life there's the next day, the next year, the next lifetime to contemplate the ruinous consequences of easy applause."
In 2004, Grant reprised his role as Daniel Cleaver for a small part in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (film)
# Will Young - "Your Love Is King"# Jamelia - "Stop"# Kylie Minogue - "Can't Get You Out of My Head"# Joss Stone - "Super Duper Love Pt. 1"# Mary J...
, which, like its predecessor, made more than $262 million commercially. Gone from the screen for two years, Grant next reteamed with Paul Weitz
Paul Weitz (filmmaker)
Paul John Weitz is an American film producer, screenwriter, actor, and film director.-Personal life:Weitz was born in New York City, New York, the son of the actress Susan Kohner and novelist/fashion designer John Weitz, and the grandson of producer Paul Kohner and Mexican actress Lupita...
(About a Boy) for the black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
American Dreamz
American Dreamz
American Dreamz is a 2006 comedy/parody film that satirizes both American politics and popular entertainment.Director/producer/writer Paul Weitz has stated that the movie is meant to satirize both the TV show American Idol and the Bush Administration...
(2006). Grant starred as the acerbic host of an American Idol
American Idol
American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...
-like reality show where, according to Caryn James of the New York Times, "nothing is real ... except the black hole at the centre of the host's heart, as Mr. Grant takes Mr. Cowell's villainous act to its limit." American Dreamz failed financially but Grant was generously praised. He played his self-aggrandising character, an amalgam of Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell
Simon Phillip Cowell is an English A&R executive, television producer, entrepreneur, and television personality. He is known in the United Kingdom and United States for his role as a talent judge on TV shows such as Pop Idol, The X Factor, Britain's Got Talent and American Idol...
and Ryan Seacrest
Ryan Seacrest
Ryan John Seacrest is an American radio personality, television host, network producer and voice actor. He is the host of On Air with Ryan Seacrest, a nationally syndicated Top 40 radio show that airs on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles and throughout the United States and Canada on Premiere Radio Networks,...
, with smarmy self-loathing. The Boston Globe proposed that this "just may be the great comic role that has always eluded Hugh Grant," and critic Carina Chocano said, "He is twice as enjoyable as the preening bad guy as he was as the bumbling good guy."
In 2007, Grant starred opposite Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore
Drew Blyth Barrymore is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered...
in a parody of pop culture and the music industry called Music and Lyrics
Music and Lyrics
Music and Lyrics is a 2007 American romantic comedy film written and directed by Marc Lawrence. It focuses on the relationship that evolves between a former pop music idol and an aspiring writer as they struggle to compose a song for the reigning pop diva.-Plot:Alex Fletcher enjoyed...
. The Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
described it as "a weird little hybrid of a romantic comedy that's simultaneously too fluffy and not whimsical enough." Though he neither listens to music nor owns any CDs, Grant learned to sing, play the piano, dance (a few mannered steps) and studied the mannerisms of prominent musicians to prepare for his role as a has-been pop singer, based loosely on Andrew Ridgeley
Andrew Ridgeley
Andrew John Ridgeley is an English former pop singer-songwriter, guitarist and environmentalist. Andrew was a member of the 1980s pop music duo Wham!.-Early life:...
. The Star-Ledger dismissed the performance, writing that "paper dolls have more depth." The film, with its revenues totalling $145 million, allowed Grant to mock disposable pop stardom and fleeting celebrity through its washed-up lead character. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Grant strikes precisely the right note with regard to Alex's career: He's too intelligent not to be a little embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame." In 2009, Grant starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
Did You Hear About the Morgans? is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Marc Lawrence. Golden Globe winners Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker portray the film's protagonists, Paul and Meryl Morgan, a recently separated New York power couple on the verge of divorce until...
, which was a commercial as well as a critical failure.
In 2011, Grant reportedly turned down the starring role in Chuck Lorre's
Chuck Lorre
Chuck Lorre is a writer, director, producer and composer who has created many American sitcoms, including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory...
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men
Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake...
reboot, replacing Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen
Carlos Irwin Estevez , better known by his stage name Charlie Sheen, is an American film and television actor. He is the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen....
's vacated role. He turned down the role due to creative differences.
Work ethic
Grant is well known for having a very strong work ethicWork ethic
Work ethic is a set of values based on hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in the moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character. An example would be the Protestant work ethic...
. He has called being a successful actor a mistake and has repeatedly talked of his hope that film stardom would just be "a phase" in his life, lasting no more than ten years. He pins his lack of interest in acting on two different thoughts: first, that he drifted into the job as a temporary joke at age 23 and finds it an immature way for a grown man to spend his time; and secondly, because he believes to have already given the one remarkable comic performance he had hoped to create on screen. A self-confessed "committed and passionate" perfectionist on a film set, Grant has constantly opted to describe himself as a reluctant actor, who chooses to be neutral about his career and works mostly with friends from previous collaborations. Richard Curtis
Richard Curtis
Richard Whalley Anthony Curtis, CBE is a New Zealand-born British screenwriter, music producer, actor and film director, known primarily for romantic comedy films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones's Diary, Notting Hill, Love Actually and The Girl in the Café, as well as the hit...
, a frequent collaborator, revealed that Grant is not fluid about the filmmaking process and tends to be unrelaxed while filming because he does not feel as though he's in the director's hands and prefers instead to take responsibility for giving a definitive performance. Grant is noted by co-workers for demanding endless takes until he achieves the desired shot according to his own standard.
A 2007 Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
profile of Grant referred to him as a man with a "professionally misanthropic mystique." The observation followed published facts such as that Grant conducts his interviews alone (without any publicists), and has derided focus groups, market research and overriding emphasis on the opening weekend. Grant decided to let go of his agent in 2006, ending a 10-year relationship with CAA. Besides proudly proclaiming in interviews to have never listened to external views on his career, he stated that he does not require the hand-holding an agent provides. A few months before firing his agent, he said, "They've known for years that I have total control. I've never taken any advice on anything."
He has stuck to the genre of comedy, especially the romantic comedy
Romantic Comedy
Romantic Comedy can refer to* Romantic Comedy , a 1979 play written by Bernard Slade* Romantic Comedy , a 1983 film adapted from the play and starring Dudley Moore and Mary Steenburgen...
, for the entirety of his mainstream film career and never ventures to play characters who are not British. While some film critics, such as the respected Roger Ebert, have defended the limited variety of his performances, others have dismissed him as a one-trick pony. Eric Fellner
Eric Fellner
-Life and career:Fellner went to Cranleigh School in Surrey, England from 1972-77. He attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He is a good friend of Hugh Grant, who is the star of some of Working Title's biggest box office hits. Fellner and his long-time partner, model Laura...
, co-owner of Working Title Films and a long-time collaborator of Grant said, "His range hasn't been fully tested, but each performance is unique." A majority of Grant's popular films in the 1990s followed a similar plot that captured an optimistic bachelor experiencing a series of embarrassing incidences to find true love, often with an American woman. In earlier films, Grant was adept at plugging into the stereotype of a repressed Englishman for humorous effects, allowing him to gently satirise his characters as he summed them up and played against the type simultaneously. These performances were sometimes deemed overbearing, in the words of Washington Posts Rita Kempley, due to his "comic overreactions—the mugging
Overacting
Overacting is the exaggeration of gestures and speech when acting. It may be unintentional, particularly in the case of a bad actor, or be required for the role. For the latter, it is commonly used in comical situations or to stress the evil characteristics of a villain...
, the stuttering, the fluttering eyelids." She added: "He's got more tics than Benny Hill." Grant's penchant for conveying his characters' feelings with mannerisms, rather than direct emotions, has been one of the foremost objections raised against his acting style. Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post once stated that, to be effective as a comic performer, he must get "his jiving and shucking under control." Film historian David Thompson
David Thomson (film critic)
David Thomson is a film critic and historian based in the United States and the author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film.-Career:...
wrote in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is a reference book written by film critic David Thomson and originally published by Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd in 1975 under the title "Biographical Dictionary of Cinema." Organized by personality, it's an exhaustive inventory of those involved in...
about how it is merely itchy mannerisms that Grant equates with screen acting.
Grant's screen persona of later films, in the new millennium, gradually developed into a cynical, self-loathing cad. Claudia Puig of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
celebrated this transformation with the observation that finally "gone [were] the self-conscious 'Aren't I adorable' mannerisms that seemed endearing at the start of [Grant's] film career but have grown cloying in more recent movies." Using his facial contortions and an affected stammer for varied comic purposes, According to Carina Chocano, amongst film critics, the two tropes most commonly associated with Grant are that he reinvented his screen persona in Bridget Jones's Diary and About a Boy and dreads the possibility of becoming a parody of himself.
His preference for levity over dramatic range has been a controversial topic in establishment circles, prompting him to say:
In the media
Grant has repeatedly spoken about his boredom with playing the celebrity in the press and is known in popular media for his guarded privacy, About the culture of celebrity, he told Vogue, "My theory is that it's like bodybuilders who inject testosterone, which means that their own powers to generate testosterone shut down forever. The fake esteem you get from being in the public eye feels like self-worth, but actually your own powers to produce it shut down. The stuff that really counts is your own. And that's, I think, why people go bonkers." On probing of his personal life, he has remained incredibly steadfast in "offering a dead bat to any question he feels is not general enough." Meanwhile, acquaintances portray him as a complicated man with an anarchic and sharp constitution. "There is at least as much of Hugh that is charismatic, intellectual, and whose tongue," according to Mike NewellMike Newell (director)
Michael Cormac "Mike" Newell is an English director and producer of motion pictures for the screen and for television. After the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in 2005, Newell became the third most commercially successful British director in recent years, behind Christopher Nolan...
, "is maybe too clever for its own good as there is of him that's gorgeous and kind of woolly and flubsy." Filmmaker Paul Weitz, calling Grant funny, observed that "he perceives flaws in himself and other people, and then he cares about their humanity nonetheless." British newspapers regularly refer to him as grumpy.
Libel lawsuits
In 1996, Grant won substantial damages from News (UK) Ltd over what his lawyers called a "highly defamatory" article published in January 1995. The company's now-defunct newspaper, TodayToday (UK newspaper)
Today was a national newspaper in the United Kingdom, which was published between 1986 and 1995.-History:Today, with the American newspaper USA Today as inspiration, launched on Tuesday, 4 March 1986, with the front page headline, "Second Spy Inside GCHQ". At 18 pence, it was a middle-market...
, had falsely claimed that Grant verbally abused a young extra with a "foul-mouthed tongue lashing" on the set of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain
The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain is a 1995 film written by Ivor Monger and directed by Christopher Monger. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival....
.
On 27 April 2007, Grant accepted undisclosed damages from the Associated Newspapers over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday
The Mail on Sunday is a British conservative newspaper, currently published in a tabloid format. First published in 1982 by Lord Rothermere, it became Britain's biggest-selling Sunday newspaper following the closing of The News of the World in July 2011...
on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles' "allegations and factual assertions are false." Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: "I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain." He went on to take the opportunity to stress, "I'm also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called 'close friends' or 'close sources' on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist."
Arrests
On 27 June 1995, Grant was arrested in an L.A. Vice police operation not far from Sunset BoulevardSunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
for misdemeanour lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood
Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...
prostitute
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
Divine Brown. He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180, placed on two years' summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program.
The arrest occurred about two weeks before the release of Grant's first major studio film, Nine Months
Nine Months
Nine Months is a 1995 romantic comedy film directed by Chris Columbus. It stars Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, Jeff Goldblum, and Robin Williams. The movie is a US remake of the French movie Neuf mois and served as Grant's first US starring role. It was filmed on location in...
, which he was scheduled to promote on several American television shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week and, as recalled in former employee Don Sweeney's memoirs, "despite his arrest, Hugh Grant kept his appointment to appear on Jay's show." The interview was a career-making hit for Leno and Grant was singled out for not making excuses for the incident. He famously said:
On Larry King Live
Larry King Live
Larry King Live is an American talk show hosted by Larry King on CNN from 1985 to 2010. It was CNN's most watched and longest-running program, with over one million viewers nightly....
, Grant declined the host Larry King
Larry King
Lawrence Harvey "Larry" King is an American television and radio host whose work has been recognized with awards including two Peabodys and ten Cable ACE Awards....
's repeated invitations to probe his psyche, saying that psychoanalysis was "more of an American syndrome" and he himself was "a bit old fashioned." He told the host: "I don't have excuses." Grant was appreciated for "his refreshing honesty" as he "faced the music and handled it with tongue [in] cheek."
In April 2007, Grant was arrested on allegations of assault made by paparazzo
Paparazzi
Paparazzi is an Italian term used to refer to photojournalists who specialize in candid photography of celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people...
Ian Whittaker. Grant made no official statement and did not comment on the incident. Charges were dropped on 1 June by the Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...
on the grounds of "insufficient evidence."
Phone hacking exposé
In April 2011 Grant published an article in the New StatesmanNew Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
entitled "The Bugger, Bugged" about a conversation following a chance encounter with Paul McMullan, former journalist and paparazzo for News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
. In unguarded comments which were secretly taped by Grant, McMullan alleged that editors at the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
and News of the World, particularly Andy Coulson
Andy Coulson
Andrew Edward Coulson is an English journalist and political strategist.Coulson was the editor of the News of the World from 2003 until his resignation in 2007, following the conviction of one of the newspaper's reporters in relation to illegal phone-hacking.He subsequently joined David Cameron's...
, had ordered journalists to engage in illegal phone tapping and had done so with the full knowledge of senior British politicians. McMullan also said that every British Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
onwards had cultivated a close relationship with Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
and his senior executives. He stressed the friendship between David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
and Rebekah Brooks (née Wade), agreeing when asked that both of them must have been aware of illegal phone tapping, and asserting that Cameron's inaction could be explained by self-interest:
"Cameron is very much in debt to Rebekah Wade for helping him not quite win the election ... So that was my submission to parliament – that Cameron's either a liar or an idiot."
When asked by Grant whether Cameron had encouraged the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
to "drag their feet" on investigating illegal phone tapping by Murdoch's journalists, McMullan agreed that this had happened, but also stated that the police themselves had taken bribes from tabloid journalists, so had a motive to comply:
"20 per cent of the Met has taken backhanders from tabloid hacks. So why would they want to open up that can of worms?... And what's wrong with that, anyway? It doesn't hurt anyone particularly."
Grant's article attracted considerable interest, due to both the revelatory content of the taped conversation, and the novelty of Grant himself "turning the tables" on a tabloid journalist.
Whilst the allegations regarding the News of the World continued to receive coverage in the broadsheets and similar media (Grant appeared for example on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
) it was only with the revelation that the voicemail of the then missing and subsequently murdered Millie Dowler had been hacked, and evidence in her murder enquiry had been deleted, that the coverage turned from media interest to widespread public (and eventually political) outrage. Grant became something of a spokesman against Murdoch's News Corporation
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
, culminating in a bravura performance on BBC television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
's Question Time
Question Time (TV series)
Question Time is a topical debate BBC television programme in the United Kingdom, based on Any Questions?. The show typically features politicians from at least the three major political parties as well as other public figures who answer questions put to them by the audience...
in July 2011.
Personal life
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
in a Spanish production called Remando Al Viento (1988), Grant met actress Elizabeth Hurley
Elizabeth Hurley
Elizabeth Jane Hurley is an English model and actress who became known as a girlfriend of Hugh Grant in the 1990s. In 1994, as Grant became the focus of worldwide media attention due to the global box office success of his film Four Weddings and a Funeral, Hurley accompanied him to the film's Los...
, who was cast in a supporting role as Byron's former lover Claire Clairmont
Claire Clairmont
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont , or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was a stepsister of writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.-Early life:...
. Grant started dating the aspiring model while shooting and their relationship was subsequently the subject of much media attention. After 13 years together, the two made "a mutual and amicable decision" to split in May 2000. In 2004, he began dating Jemima Khan
Jemima Khan
Jemima Marcelle Khan is a British writer and campaigner. She is associate editor of the New Statesman and European editor-at-large for Vanity Fair. She has worked as a charity fundraiser, human rights campaigner and contributing writer for British newspapers and magazines...
under the intense scrutiny of British tabloids
Tabloid journalism
Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...
. Three years later, in February 2007, Grant's publicist announced that the couple had "decided to split amicably." The spokesman added, "Hugh has nothing but positive things to say about Jemima."
In November 2011, it was announced that Grant had become a father to a baby girl earlier that fall. The identity of the mother, with whom Grant had a "fleeting affair" according to his publicist, was not at first announced; however, it was later revealed to be a Chinese woman named Tinglan Hong. Furthermore, the publicist went on to say that "while this was not planned, Hugh could not be happier or more supportive. He and the mother have discussed everything and are on very friendly terms."
A famous "golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
ing addict", Grant is a scratch golfer and is a regular at pro-am tournaments with membership at the Sunningdale Golf Club. He is also frequently pictured by the paparazzi at the famed Scottish golf courses in St Andrews
St Andrews
St Andrews is a university town and former royal burgh on the east coast of Fife in Scotland. The town is named after Saint Andrew the Apostle.St Andrews has a population of 16,680, making this the fifth largest settlement in Fife....
, Kingsbarns
Kingsbarns
The village of Kingsbarns lies on eastern coast of Fife, Scotland, in an area known as the East Neuk, 6.5 miles southeast of St Andrews and 3.6 miles north of Crail....
and Carnoustie
Carnoustie
Carnoustie is a town and former police burgh in the council area of Angus, Scotland. It is situated at the mouth of the Barry Burn on the North Sea coast...
. Highly competitive, he reportedly plays with a lot of money at stake. As a young boy, he played rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
on his school's first XV team at centre and played football as an avid fan of Fulham F.C.
Fulham F.C.
Fulham Football Club is a professional English Premier League club based in southwest London Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Founded in 1879, they play in the Premier League, their 11th current season...
. He is also a fan of Scottish side Rangers F.C.
Rangers F.C.
Rangers Football Club are an association football club based in Glasgow, Scotland, who play in the Scottish Premier League. The club are nicknamed the Gers, Teddy Bears and the Light Blues, and the fans are known to each other as bluenoses...
thanks to his grandfather who was Scottish. He continued to play in a Sunday-morning football league in south-west London after college and remains an "impassioned Fulham supporter." Grant's other interests include snooker
Snooker
Snooker is a cue sport that is played on a green baize-covered table with pockets in each of the four corners and in the middle of each of the long side cushions. A regular table is . It is played using a cue and snooker balls: one white , 15 worth one point each, and six balls of different :...
and tennis.
Charity work
Grant is a Patron of The DIPEx CharityThe DIPEx Charity
The DIPEx Charity is an Oxford-based health charity that works closely with the Health Experiences Research Group at the University of Oxford to disseminate research into personal experiences of health and illness. The charity publishes two websites called Healthtalkonline and Youthhealthtalk...
a charity that publishes the websites Healthtalkonline and Youthhealthtalk; and a Patron of the Fynvola Foundation, named after his late mother, a charity which provides nursing and care for older learning-disabled people. He is also a supporter of Marie Curie Cancer Care
Marie Curie Cancer Care
Marie Curie Cancer Care is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which provides nursing care, free of charge, to terminally ill people, giving them the chance to choose to be cared for at home...
, whose Great Daffodil Appeal he promoted in March 2008.