Temos hoje, com o inestimável apoio da Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, a possibilidade de apresentar uma entrevista a Hugh Grant em exclusivo para Portugal. A entrevista vem a propósito da sua participação no filme Ouviste Falar dos Morgans?, cujo lançamento em DVD acabou de acontecer no nosso país.
Aliás, a propósito desse lançamento, teremos uma outra iniciativa ainda durante o dia de hoje. Tanto o texto de introdução como a entrevista em si se encontram na sua versão original. Esperamos que os nossos leitores não se incomodem com isso, pois a nossa intenção foi proporcionar-lhes algo de novo aqui no blog! Esperamos que desfrutem!
Making Did You Hear About The Morgans? provided Hugh Grant with a host of memorable experiences. There was the majestic backdrop provided by filming in the wilds of New Mexico, the welcome chance to work alongside Sarah Jessica Parker and the opportunity to renew his successful collaboration with writer and director Marc Lawrence.
And then there was Bart the Grizzly Bear - one of the more colourful co-stars to share the screen alongside the urbane Englishman. Bart proved to be a rather demanding star, he jokes, as well as an impressive beast with a voracious appetite.
“I’ve come across some Prima Donnas in my life but nothing like Bart the Bear,” he laughs. This was Bart’s 21st film or something – he works all the time – and he refused to come out of his trailer until he’d been showered from head to foot and given 20 cans of iced tea, which he eats.
“He puts them in his mouth, or his trainers does, he chomps them and swallows them, 20 in a row. And then he comes out and all the crew and actors are given a lecture about how to treat him.
“You’re not allowed to look in his eye and then if he hits his mark everyone has to cheer and applaud and say ‘yah, Bart, you’re amazing!’ And then he’s given a frying pan full of whipped cream and then his trainer wrestles him to the ground and they cuddle each other for twenty minutes.
“Actually it was fascinating and it made me quite jealous and I insisted that Marc do the wrestling thing to me after good takes from there on.”
Grant is bombarded with romantic comedy scripts. What, then, gets through on his radar? “I know it when I see it,” he says. “It really is just that simple - what I judge to be good writing, which means that, number one, you want to turn the page because you want to know what happens next - that’s vastly important - and then if it’s a comedy, it’s got to make me laugh. Those two things are surprisingly rare.”
Did You Hear About The Morgans? clearly met that exacting criteria. It is, says Grant, a romantic comedy with a compelling story and a lot of finely observed humour. And Grant’s self-deprecating charm made him the perfect foil for Sarah Jessica Parker as they play a husband and wife who have to flee their comfort zone in Manhattan after witnessing a murder, into the safety of a Witness Protection Programme.
The Morgans are whisked away to the rugged, rural charm of Wyoming where life for this ultra sophisticated pair of city dwellers is very different indeed. There are no chic restaurants, no BlackBerrys and their floundering relationship is put under even more strain than it was amidst the skyscrapers and luxury stores in the Big Apple.
We’re a high end New York couple, explains Grant – she’s a successful real estate person and I’m a successful lawyer – and very urban and then we witness a murder and get sent into the Witness Protection scheme in a tiny cowboy town in Wyoming.
“But the trick is that we’re actually a married couple who are having problems and we’ve been split up for three months when our story starts and so it’s not an ideal time to be sent away together. But, enchantingly, the experience gradually appears to be healing our marriage.”
The actor has clearly found a creative soul mate with Marc Lawrence and Did You Hear About The Morgans? is their third film together, following Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics, which were both huge box office hits.
“This one has been cooking for years,” says Grant. “And in many different manifestations. It was originally called Faith Buffalo and it was about a New York girl who goes into the Witness Protection scheme and then – because he is incapable of making a film without me – he made it into a film about a couple who go into the Witness Protection scheme. So it’s been a long gestation period but it has evolved into the film we have now.”
The key to this successful teamwork starts with the writing. Quite simply, says Grant, Lawrence has a brilliant eye for a romantic comedy script and then knows instinctively how to translate that into compelling images on the screen. He also makes it look deceptively easy, says his star.
“I like his jokes,” he says. “I think he writes great jokes. I find his stuff charming and it has a kind of innocence.
“Marc is incredibly, generously, collaborative and not in a bullshit way, which you sometimes come across, where they’re having to sort of placate the tricky, the leading actor.
“I think he actually quite values my opinions, listens to them and we have a laugh - we have a laugh on the set and actually, we’re both deeply pessimistic human beings and rejoice in that together.
“And, oddly enough, I find him to be one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met which is frightening to some in that his career has all been in mass entertainment rather than any arty farty stuff.
“But like a lot of those clever people I know they’re more interested in mass entertainment than they are in being arty – Richard Curtis another good example.”
Grant has worked with Curtis on no less than five occasions – Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason were all written by Curtis, and Love Actually, which Curtis wrote and directed
“Yes, they are similar in many ways,” he says. “They’re both highly intelligent and they’re both interested in entertaining enormous amounts of people instead of a few people in North London or wherever.”
Grant had worked with Sarah Jessica Parker once before on the thriller Extreme Measures. The actress, who plays the ultimate New York icon in Sex and the City, was perfect to play a dyed in the wool, ultra chic Manhattan girl about town in Did You Hear About The Morgans?
“I have to say she fitted in ridiculously well, because, although we couldn’t call her a miserablist, like us, she is the female equivalent of Marc Lawrence in that she’s deep, deep New York, every fibre of her,” says Grant.
“And you know, they can sit for hours and talk about where you can get the best pizza and where you can get the best bagels and what particular Yiddish swear word their grandparents used to use, and I actually started to feel left out, I felt like the elder child when a new child is born in the family. My nose was out of joint slightly.
“She was the ideal partner for me really because she was as terrified as I always am, before the film started - I mean really, properly terrified. And on our first day together we really couldn’t speak during the first take, just little noises came out of our mouths.
“But that was very bonding experience and we gradually got more and more comfortable with each other and it came to the point where we used to beg Marc to shoot us always in a two shot, because if we all felt that we were in the same frame together, we felt cosy and relaxed, and we hated doing close ups.
“We worked together when we did a thriller together, with her as my sort of love interest, back in 1997. And she was adorable then, but we didn’t bond then in quite the same way that we did on this film. And you know, I pretty much hate everyone, and I actually like Sarah Jessica Parker and I’m rather proud of that.”
The production filmed in and around Santa Fe in New Mexico for Wyoming and Grant loved spending time in a part of the United States that he’d never visited before. Although, he jokes, his director and co-star weren’t quite so enamoured with their separation from their natural habitat, New York.
“There are a lot of beasts in this film, including Bart the Bear, of course. And Sarah Jessica was very brave for a woman who had never set foot outside Manhattan,” he laughs.
“She was plucky but it wasn’t her cup of tea and it certainly wasn’t Marc Lawrence’s cup of tea. He just stood there, snot pouring out of his nose, unable to speak with the dust – he couldn’t cope at all.
“I quite liked it, I have to say. I’d never been to the Wild West before and I was thrilled actually by people having guns and cowboy hats – I didn’t know that they still did that.
“There was a notice outside one of our sets when we shot a big rodeo scene, a serious notice that said ‘no concealed weapons’ because a lot of our crew and extras, carried guns. You don’t really come across that at Shepperton Studios in London, you know..”
As well as sharing a memorable scene with that grizzly, Grant also had to spend a good deal of time on horseback. Parker claims that he is an accomplished rider – Grant, typically, won’t hear it.
“Well that’s not true. Basically I’m very frightened of horses, I don’t like it when it stops, he jokes. “And you never know when they are suddenly going to just lash out and knock all your teeth out, like they did to my poor cousin Rachel.”
But he was very impressed with the magnificent beauty of New Mexico. “The crew all stayed in Santa Fe and Sarah Jessica and I moved out to a sort of health resort out in the mountains and I have to say it was incredibly beautiful, sitting there in the evening with a big margarita in your hand, watching the sun go down while the local hippies – and every seems to be a hippy in Santa Fe –did fire dances and things like that.
“I love filming on location and right at the end of the New Mexico phase of the film we needed to shoot in a place that was so remote there was no hotel anywhere so we agreed, in a moment of drunkenness before the film started, that we would actually camp out and so we all lived in our trailers, like gypsies, and it was unbelievably good fun.”
Grant was born and raised in London and after leaving Oxford University, where he studied English, worked in several jobs – writing radio commercials, a spell as an assistant grounds man at his favourite football club, Fulham FC - before concentrating on acting.
His first leading role came with Merchant Ivory’s period drama Maurice and he quickly established himself as one of the most talented young actors on the UK scene working with the directors as diverse as Roman Polanski (Bitter Moon) and Ken Russell (The Lair of The White Worm).
Starring in Four Weddings and a Funeral brought Grant international recognition and he went on to star in several huge box office hits including Sense and Sensibility, Mickey Blue Eyes, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, About A Boy, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Music and Lyrics.
Q and A follows:
Q: How are things?
A: They’re excellent, thank you very much.
Q: Did Marc talk to you about Did You Hear About The Morgans? when you were working together before?
A: This one has been cooking for years. and in many different manifestations. It was originally called Faith Buffalo and it was about a New York girl who goes into the Witness Protection scheme and then – because he is incapable of making a film without me – he made it into a film about a couple who go into the Witness Protection scheme. So it’s been a long gestation period but it has evolved into the film we have now.
Q: Did You Hear About The Morgans? is your third film with Marc and you clearly like working with him. Why?
A: That’s hard to answer because in many ways it’s a nightmare. (laughs)
Q: Go on try…
A: I like his jokes. I think he writes great jokes I find his stuff charming and it has a kind of innocence.
Marc is incredibly, generously, collaborative and not in a bullshit way, which you sometimes come across, where they’re having to sort of placate the tricky, the leading actor.
Q: Do you like to have input into a script yourself?
A: I do and I think he actually quite values my opinions, listens to them and we have a laugh - we have a laugh on the set and actually, we’re both deeply pessimistic human beings and rejoice in that together. And, oddly enough, I find him to be one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met which is frightening to some in that his career has all been in mass entertainment rather than any arty farty stuff. But like a lot of those clever people I know they’re more interested in mass entertainment than they are in being arty – Richard Curtis another good example.
Q: So in comes Sarah Jessica Parker into this mix, this well-oiled machine, how did she get on?
A: I have to say she fitted in ridiculously well, because, although we couldn’t call her a miserablist, like us, she is the female equivalent of Marc Lawrence in that she’s deep, deep New York, every fibre of her, and you know, they can sit for hours and talk about where you can get the best pizza and where you can get the best bagels and what particular Yiddish swear word their grandparents used to use, and I actually started to feel left out, I felt like the elder child when a new child is born in the family. My nose was out of joint slightly.
Q: You were usurped…
A: I was usurped (laughs)
Q: She’s very good at comedy as she’s proved with Sex and the City. Did you find her a good partner?
A: Actually, I really like Sex and the City. I’m a fan. And she was the ideal partner for me really because she was as terrified as I always am, before the film started - I mean really, properly terrified. And on our first day together we really couldn’t speak during the first take, just little noises came out of our mouths. But that was very bonding experience and we gradually got more and more comfortable with each other and it came to the point where we used to beg Marc to shoot us always in a two shot, because if we all felt that we were in the same frame together, we felt cosy and relaxed, and we hated doing close ups.
Q: Didn’t you work together before?
A: We worked together when we did a thriller (Extreme Measures) together, with her as my sort of love interest, back in 1997. And she was adorable then, but we didn’t bond then in quite the same way that we did on this film. And you know, I pretty much hate everyone, and I actually like Sarah Jessica Parker and I’m rather proud of that.
Q: I spoke to her a couple of weeks ago and she was very complimentary about you..
A: Oh good. Did she gush to you a bit?
Q: She gushed, not only suitably, but convincingly too.
A: Charming.
Q: For the benefit of people who haven’t seen Did You Hear About The Morgans? Describe the plot to me…
A: We’re a high end New York couple – she’s a successful real estate person and I’m a successful lawyer – and very urban and then we witness a murder and get sent into the Witness Protection scheme in a tiny town in Wyoming. But the trick is that we’re actually a married couple who are having problems and we’ve been split up for three months when our story starts and so it’s not an ideal time to be sent away together. But, enchantingly, the experience gradually appears to be healing our marriage.
Q: Sarah Jessica was saying that there are a lot of animals in this film…
A: Yes, there are a lot of beasts in this film, including Bart the Bear, of course. And Sarah Jessica was very brave for a woman who had never set foot outside Manhattan. She was plucky but it wasn’t her cup of tea and it certainly wasn’t Marc Lawrence’s cup of tea. He just stood there, snot pouring out of his nose, unable to speak with the dust – he couldn’t cope at all. I quite liked it, I have to say. I’d never been to the Wild West before and I was thrilled actually by people having guns and cowboy hats – I didn’t know that they still did that. There was a notice outside one of our sets when we shot a big rodeo scene, a serious notice that said ‘no concealed weapons’ because a lot of our crew and extras,carried guns. You don’t really come across that at Shepperton Studios in London, you know..
Q: Sarah Jessica seemed a little traumatized by a scene that she was talking about, about when she has to milk the cows…
A: Yes, she milks cows…
Q: Did you have to do that?
A: No, no milking for me, but I had to ride a bit and I had to be attacked by a bear…
Q: Ah, I heard about the bear. What was he like or she like, I have no idea what the sex of the bear was..
A: The bear was a gentleman. A gentleman bear and a massive Prima Donna. I’ve come across some Prima Donnas in my life, but nothing like Bart the bear. This was about Bart’s 21st film, he works all the time, refused to come out of his trailer until he’d been showered from head to foot, and given twenty cans of ice tea, which he eats, you put them in his mouth, or his trainer does, he chomps them and swallows them, 20 in a row, and then he comes out and all the crew and actors are given a lecture about how to treat him. You’re not allowed to look in his eye and then if he hits his mark, everyone has to cheer and applaud, and say, 'yay Bart, you’re amazing.' And then he’s given a frying pan full of whipped cream, and then his trainer wrestles him to the ground and they cuddle each other for twenty minutes. You do take two, and it was fascinating and actually it made me quite jealous and I insisted that Marc do the wrestling thing to me after good takes from there on after the rest of the film.
Q: But did you insist on the whipped cream?
A: Not in my mouth.
Q: Sarah Jessica also said that you are good with horses…
A: Well that’s not true. Basically I’m very frightened of horses, I don’t like it when it stops. You never know when they are suddenly going to just lash out and knock all your teeth out, like they did to my poor cousin Rachel.
Q: Did you enjoy filming in New Mexico? Out in the wilds…
A: Yes I did. The crew all stayed in Santa Fe and Sarah Jessica and I moved out to a sort of health resort out in the mountains and I have to say it was incredibly beautiful, sitting there in the evening with a big margarita in your hand, watching the sun go down while the local hippies – and every seems to be a hippy in Santa Fe –did fire dances and things like that. I love filming on location and right at the end of the New Mexico phase of the film we needed to shoot in a place that was so remote there was no hotel anywhere so we agreed, in a moment of drunkenness before the film started, that we would actually camp out and so we all lived in our trailers, like gypsies, and it was unbelievably good fun.
Q: Good films all start with a good script and a good romantic comedy has to have a good script. Does Marc let you have input into the script when you work together?
A: Yeah, very much so and that, we probably went through, I don’t know, fifteen drafts, maybe more, before we came up with one we started with. When he’s writing he’ll send pages and I’ll send him notes and there are other people giving notes as well, we’ve been a team with the people at Castle Rock for a long time, and so yeah, as I said before, it is incredibly collaborative. And then on the day as you’re shooting, we shoot a few takes absolutely as written, and then there will be several where I’ll start adding things, sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassingly unfunny, and one of the nice things about getting to trust someone like him or even Sarah Jessica, you know you trust someone when you dare to be unfunny, when you try something and you can both go off to go ‘fuck, that was lame..’ So yeah, it’s very collaborative like that, but he is the real genius.
Q: You’ve also had a very fruitful partnership with Richard Curtis over the years, are they similar?
A: Yeah they are in many ways, as I said, they’re both highly intelligent, they’re both interested in entertaining enormous amounts of people instead of a few people in North London or whatever. And I do send Richard notes, not in quite the same way that I do with Marc.
Q: How do you choose a film these days? I mean, you must get so many offers, but what gets your attention?
A: I know it when I see it. It really is just that simple - what I judge to be good writing, which means that, number one, you want to turn the page because you want to know what happens next, that’s vastly important, and then if it’s a comedy, it’s got to make me laugh. Those two things are surprisingly rare.
Q: Have you ever been tempted to do a script yourself?
A: Yes, very much so.
Q: And is that something that you might do, or you’ve been working on?
A: I do have a few ideas I must say. But I suffer a kind of paralysis or inertia where I don’t seem to get anything done, I don’t know why.
Q: Are you still following the fortunes of your favourite football club, Fulham FC, in the premiership in England?
A: Yes, but I’m not the fan I was when they were in the lower divisions. I’m slightly repulsed by the premiere league and the whole thing has lost it’s romance for me a bit.
Q: And I know you are still playing golf…
A: Yeah, I still have my golf problem. I’m trying to kick it because it’s not attractive. But yeah, I mean I can’t pass a mirror without trying a new swing move.
Q: What’s the handicap now Hugh?
A: It’s been the same for five or six years, it’s eight.
Q: Well that’s not bad…
A: Yeah well, it’s a very expensive eight.
Q: Well, you must have played some amazing courses.
A: I have and I’m very spoiled like that. My favourites are the Scottish ones – I love Scottish golf.
Q: And what’s on the horizon for work? Any new film projects you can tell me about?
A: Well, I’m flirting with a few things, but I probably am not ready to really share them yet, I’m afraid. I’ll keep you posted…
And then there was Bart the Grizzly Bear - one of the more colourful co-stars to share the screen alongside the urbane Englishman. Bart proved to be a rather demanding star, he jokes, as well as an impressive beast with a voracious appetite.
“I’ve come across some Prima Donnas in my life but nothing like Bart the Bear,” he laughs. This was Bart’s 21st film or something – he works all the time – and he refused to come out of his trailer until he’d been showered from head to foot and given 20 cans of iced tea, which he eats.
“He puts them in his mouth, or his trainers does, he chomps them and swallows them, 20 in a row. And then he comes out and all the crew and actors are given a lecture about how to treat him.
“You’re not allowed to look in his eye and then if he hits his mark everyone has to cheer and applaud and say ‘yah, Bart, you’re amazing!’ And then he’s given a frying pan full of whipped cream and then his trainer wrestles him to the ground and they cuddle each other for twenty minutes.
“Actually it was fascinating and it made me quite jealous and I insisted that Marc do the wrestling thing to me after good takes from there on.”
Grant is bombarded with romantic comedy scripts. What, then, gets through on his radar? “I know it when I see it,” he says. “It really is just that simple - what I judge to be good writing, which means that, number one, you want to turn the page because you want to know what happens next - that’s vastly important - and then if it’s a comedy, it’s got to make me laugh. Those two things are surprisingly rare.”
Did You Hear About The Morgans? clearly met that exacting criteria. It is, says Grant, a romantic comedy with a compelling story and a lot of finely observed humour. And Grant’s self-deprecating charm made him the perfect foil for Sarah Jessica Parker as they play a husband and wife who have to flee their comfort zone in Manhattan after witnessing a murder, into the safety of a Witness Protection Programme.
The Morgans are whisked away to the rugged, rural charm of Wyoming where life for this ultra sophisticated pair of city dwellers is very different indeed. There are no chic restaurants, no BlackBerrys and their floundering relationship is put under even more strain than it was amidst the skyscrapers and luxury stores in the Big Apple.
We’re a high end New York couple, explains Grant – she’s a successful real estate person and I’m a successful lawyer – and very urban and then we witness a murder and get sent into the Witness Protection scheme in a tiny cowboy town in Wyoming.
“But the trick is that we’re actually a married couple who are having problems and we’ve been split up for three months when our story starts and so it’s not an ideal time to be sent away together. But, enchantingly, the experience gradually appears to be healing our marriage.”
The actor has clearly found a creative soul mate with Marc Lawrence and Did You Hear About The Morgans? is their third film together, following Two Weeks Notice and Music and Lyrics, which were both huge box office hits.
“This one has been cooking for years,” says Grant. “And in many different manifestations. It was originally called Faith Buffalo and it was about a New York girl who goes into the Witness Protection scheme and then – because he is incapable of making a film without me – he made it into a film about a couple who go into the Witness Protection scheme. So it’s been a long gestation period but it has evolved into the film we have now.”
The key to this successful teamwork starts with the writing. Quite simply, says Grant, Lawrence has a brilliant eye for a romantic comedy script and then knows instinctively how to translate that into compelling images on the screen. He also makes it look deceptively easy, says his star.
“I like his jokes,” he says. “I think he writes great jokes. I find his stuff charming and it has a kind of innocence.
“Marc is incredibly, generously, collaborative and not in a bullshit way, which you sometimes come across, where they’re having to sort of placate the tricky, the leading actor.
“I think he actually quite values my opinions, listens to them and we have a laugh - we have a laugh on the set and actually, we’re both deeply pessimistic human beings and rejoice in that together.
“And, oddly enough, I find him to be one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met which is frightening to some in that his career has all been in mass entertainment rather than any arty farty stuff.
“But like a lot of those clever people I know they’re more interested in mass entertainment than they are in being arty – Richard Curtis another good example.”
Grant has worked with Curtis on no less than five occasions – Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason were all written by Curtis, and Love Actually, which Curtis wrote and directed
“Yes, they are similar in many ways,” he says. “They’re both highly intelligent and they’re both interested in entertaining enormous amounts of people instead of a few people in North London or wherever.”
Grant had worked with Sarah Jessica Parker once before on the thriller Extreme Measures. The actress, who plays the ultimate New York icon in Sex and the City, was perfect to play a dyed in the wool, ultra chic Manhattan girl about town in Did You Hear About The Morgans?
“I have to say she fitted in ridiculously well, because, although we couldn’t call her a miserablist, like us, she is the female equivalent of Marc Lawrence in that she’s deep, deep New York, every fibre of her,” says Grant.
“And you know, they can sit for hours and talk about where you can get the best pizza and where you can get the best bagels and what particular Yiddish swear word their grandparents used to use, and I actually started to feel left out, I felt like the elder child when a new child is born in the family. My nose was out of joint slightly.
“She was the ideal partner for me really because she was as terrified as I always am, before the film started - I mean really, properly terrified. And on our first day together we really couldn’t speak during the first take, just little noises came out of our mouths.
“But that was very bonding experience and we gradually got more and more comfortable with each other and it came to the point where we used to beg Marc to shoot us always in a two shot, because if we all felt that we were in the same frame together, we felt cosy and relaxed, and we hated doing close ups.
“We worked together when we did a thriller together, with her as my sort of love interest, back in 1997. And she was adorable then, but we didn’t bond then in quite the same way that we did on this film. And you know, I pretty much hate everyone, and I actually like Sarah Jessica Parker and I’m rather proud of that.”
The production filmed in and around Santa Fe in New Mexico for Wyoming and Grant loved spending time in a part of the United States that he’d never visited before. Although, he jokes, his director and co-star weren’t quite so enamoured with their separation from their natural habitat, New York.
“There are a lot of beasts in this film, including Bart the Bear, of course. And Sarah Jessica was very brave for a woman who had never set foot outside Manhattan,” he laughs.
“She was plucky but it wasn’t her cup of tea and it certainly wasn’t Marc Lawrence’s cup of tea. He just stood there, snot pouring out of his nose, unable to speak with the dust – he couldn’t cope at all.
“I quite liked it, I have to say. I’d never been to the Wild West before and I was thrilled actually by people having guns and cowboy hats – I didn’t know that they still did that.
“There was a notice outside one of our sets when we shot a big rodeo scene, a serious notice that said ‘no concealed weapons’ because a lot of our crew and extras, carried guns. You don’t really come across that at Shepperton Studios in London, you know..”
As well as sharing a memorable scene with that grizzly, Grant also had to spend a good deal of time on horseback. Parker claims that he is an accomplished rider – Grant, typically, won’t hear it.
“Well that’s not true. Basically I’m very frightened of horses, I don’t like it when it stops, he jokes. “And you never know when they are suddenly going to just lash out and knock all your teeth out, like they did to my poor cousin Rachel.”
But he was very impressed with the magnificent beauty of New Mexico. “The crew all stayed in Santa Fe and Sarah Jessica and I moved out to a sort of health resort out in the mountains and I have to say it was incredibly beautiful, sitting there in the evening with a big margarita in your hand, watching the sun go down while the local hippies – and every seems to be a hippy in Santa Fe –did fire dances and things like that.
“I love filming on location and right at the end of the New Mexico phase of the film we needed to shoot in a place that was so remote there was no hotel anywhere so we agreed, in a moment of drunkenness before the film started, that we would actually camp out and so we all lived in our trailers, like gypsies, and it was unbelievably good fun.”
Grant was born and raised in London and after leaving Oxford University, where he studied English, worked in several jobs – writing radio commercials, a spell as an assistant grounds man at his favourite football club, Fulham FC - before concentrating on acting.
His first leading role came with Merchant Ivory’s period drama Maurice and he quickly established himself as one of the most talented young actors on the UK scene working with the directors as diverse as Roman Polanski (Bitter Moon) and Ken Russell (The Lair of The White Worm).
Starring in Four Weddings and a Funeral brought Grant international recognition and he went on to star in several huge box office hits including Sense and Sensibility, Mickey Blue Eyes, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, About A Boy, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason and Music and Lyrics.
Q and A follows:
Q: How are things?
A: They’re excellent, thank you very much.
Q: Did Marc talk to you about Did You Hear About The Morgans? when you were working together before?
A: This one has been cooking for years. and in many different manifestations. It was originally called Faith Buffalo and it was about a New York girl who goes into the Witness Protection scheme and then – because he is incapable of making a film without me – he made it into a film about a couple who go into the Witness Protection scheme. So it’s been a long gestation period but it has evolved into the film we have now.
Q: Did You Hear About The Morgans? is your third film with Marc and you clearly like working with him. Why?
A: That’s hard to answer because in many ways it’s a nightmare. (laughs)
Q: Go on try…
A: I like his jokes. I think he writes great jokes I find his stuff charming and it has a kind of innocence.
Marc is incredibly, generously, collaborative and not in a bullshit way, which you sometimes come across, where they’re having to sort of placate the tricky, the leading actor.
Q: Do you like to have input into a script yourself?
A: I do and I think he actually quite values my opinions, listens to them and we have a laugh - we have a laugh on the set and actually, we’re both deeply pessimistic human beings and rejoice in that together. And, oddly enough, I find him to be one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met which is frightening to some in that his career has all been in mass entertainment rather than any arty farty stuff. But like a lot of those clever people I know they’re more interested in mass entertainment than they are in being arty – Richard Curtis another good example.
Q: So in comes Sarah Jessica Parker into this mix, this well-oiled machine, how did she get on?
A: I have to say she fitted in ridiculously well, because, although we couldn’t call her a miserablist, like us, she is the female equivalent of Marc Lawrence in that she’s deep, deep New York, every fibre of her, and you know, they can sit for hours and talk about where you can get the best pizza and where you can get the best bagels and what particular Yiddish swear word their grandparents used to use, and I actually started to feel left out, I felt like the elder child when a new child is born in the family. My nose was out of joint slightly.
Q: You were usurped…
A: I was usurped (laughs)
Q: She’s very good at comedy as she’s proved with Sex and the City. Did you find her a good partner?
A: Actually, I really like Sex and the City. I’m a fan. And she was the ideal partner for me really because she was as terrified as I always am, before the film started - I mean really, properly terrified. And on our first day together we really couldn’t speak during the first take, just little noises came out of our mouths. But that was very bonding experience and we gradually got more and more comfortable with each other and it came to the point where we used to beg Marc to shoot us always in a two shot, because if we all felt that we were in the same frame together, we felt cosy and relaxed, and we hated doing close ups.
Q: Didn’t you work together before?
A: We worked together when we did a thriller (Extreme Measures) together, with her as my sort of love interest, back in 1997. And she was adorable then, but we didn’t bond then in quite the same way that we did on this film. And you know, I pretty much hate everyone, and I actually like Sarah Jessica Parker and I’m rather proud of that.
Q: I spoke to her a couple of weeks ago and she was very complimentary about you..
A: Oh good. Did she gush to you a bit?
Q: She gushed, not only suitably, but convincingly too.
A: Charming.
Q: For the benefit of people who haven’t seen Did You Hear About The Morgans? Describe the plot to me…
A: We’re a high end New York couple – she’s a successful real estate person and I’m a successful lawyer – and very urban and then we witness a murder and get sent into the Witness Protection scheme in a tiny town in Wyoming. But the trick is that we’re actually a married couple who are having problems and we’ve been split up for three months when our story starts and so it’s not an ideal time to be sent away together. But, enchantingly, the experience gradually appears to be healing our marriage.
Q: Sarah Jessica was saying that there are a lot of animals in this film…
A: Yes, there are a lot of beasts in this film, including Bart the Bear, of course. And Sarah Jessica was very brave for a woman who had never set foot outside Manhattan. She was plucky but it wasn’t her cup of tea and it certainly wasn’t Marc Lawrence’s cup of tea. He just stood there, snot pouring out of his nose, unable to speak with the dust – he couldn’t cope at all. I quite liked it, I have to say. I’d never been to the Wild West before and I was thrilled actually by people having guns and cowboy hats – I didn’t know that they still did that. There was a notice outside one of our sets when we shot a big rodeo scene, a serious notice that said ‘no concealed weapons’ because a lot of our crew and extras,carried guns. You don’t really come across that at Shepperton Studios in London, you know..
Q: Sarah Jessica seemed a little traumatized by a scene that she was talking about, about when she has to milk the cows…
A: Yes, she milks cows…
Q: Did you have to do that?
A: No, no milking for me, but I had to ride a bit and I had to be attacked by a bear…
Q: Ah, I heard about the bear. What was he like or she like, I have no idea what the sex of the bear was..
A: The bear was a gentleman. A gentleman bear and a massive Prima Donna. I’ve come across some Prima Donnas in my life, but nothing like Bart the bear. This was about Bart’s 21st film, he works all the time, refused to come out of his trailer until he’d been showered from head to foot, and given twenty cans of ice tea, which he eats, you put them in his mouth, or his trainer does, he chomps them and swallows them, 20 in a row, and then he comes out and all the crew and actors are given a lecture about how to treat him. You’re not allowed to look in his eye and then if he hits his mark, everyone has to cheer and applaud, and say, 'yay Bart, you’re amazing.' And then he’s given a frying pan full of whipped cream, and then his trainer wrestles him to the ground and they cuddle each other for twenty minutes. You do take two, and it was fascinating and actually it made me quite jealous and I insisted that Marc do the wrestling thing to me after good takes from there on after the rest of the film.
Q: But did you insist on the whipped cream?
A: Not in my mouth.
Q: Sarah Jessica also said that you are good with horses…
A: Well that’s not true. Basically I’m very frightened of horses, I don’t like it when it stops. You never know when they are suddenly going to just lash out and knock all your teeth out, like they did to my poor cousin Rachel.
Q: Did you enjoy filming in New Mexico? Out in the wilds…
A: Yes I did. The crew all stayed in Santa Fe and Sarah Jessica and I moved out to a sort of health resort out in the mountains and I have to say it was incredibly beautiful, sitting there in the evening with a big margarita in your hand, watching the sun go down while the local hippies – and every seems to be a hippy in Santa Fe –did fire dances and things like that. I love filming on location and right at the end of the New Mexico phase of the film we needed to shoot in a place that was so remote there was no hotel anywhere so we agreed, in a moment of drunkenness before the film started, that we would actually camp out and so we all lived in our trailers, like gypsies, and it was unbelievably good fun.
Q: Good films all start with a good script and a good romantic comedy has to have a good script. Does Marc let you have input into the script when you work together?
A: Yeah, very much so and that, we probably went through, I don’t know, fifteen drafts, maybe more, before we came up with one we started with. When he’s writing he’ll send pages and I’ll send him notes and there are other people giving notes as well, we’ve been a team with the people at Castle Rock for a long time, and so yeah, as I said before, it is incredibly collaborative. And then on the day as you’re shooting, we shoot a few takes absolutely as written, and then there will be several where I’ll start adding things, sometimes funny, sometimes embarrassingly unfunny, and one of the nice things about getting to trust someone like him or even Sarah Jessica, you know you trust someone when you dare to be unfunny, when you try something and you can both go off to go ‘fuck, that was lame..’ So yeah, it’s very collaborative like that, but he is the real genius.
Q: You’ve also had a very fruitful partnership with Richard Curtis over the years, are they similar?
A: Yeah they are in many ways, as I said, they’re both highly intelligent, they’re both interested in entertaining enormous amounts of people instead of a few people in North London or whatever. And I do send Richard notes, not in quite the same way that I do with Marc.
Q: How do you choose a film these days? I mean, you must get so many offers, but what gets your attention?
A: I know it when I see it. It really is just that simple - what I judge to be good writing, which means that, number one, you want to turn the page because you want to know what happens next, that’s vastly important, and then if it’s a comedy, it’s got to make me laugh. Those two things are surprisingly rare.
Q: Have you ever been tempted to do a script yourself?
A: Yes, very much so.
Q: And is that something that you might do, or you’ve been working on?
A: I do have a few ideas I must say. But I suffer a kind of paralysis or inertia where I don’t seem to get anything done, I don’t know why.
Q: Are you still following the fortunes of your favourite football club, Fulham FC, in the premiership in England?
A: Yes, but I’m not the fan I was when they were in the lower divisions. I’m slightly repulsed by the premiere league and the whole thing has lost it’s romance for me a bit.
Q: And I know you are still playing golf…
A: Yeah, I still have my golf problem. I’m trying to kick it because it’s not attractive. But yeah, I mean I can’t pass a mirror without trying a new swing move.
Q: What’s the handicap now Hugh?
A: It’s been the same for five or six years, it’s eight.
Q: Well that’s not bad…
A: Yeah well, it’s a very expensive eight.
Q: Well, you must have played some amazing courses.
A: I have and I’m very spoiled like that. My favourites are the Scottish ones – I love Scottish golf.
Q: And what’s on the horizon for work? Any new film projects you can tell me about?
A: Well, I’m flirting with a few things, but I probably am not ready to really share them yet, I’m afraid. I’ll keep you posted…
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