My guard was up. For the entirety of the 90s, Hugh Grant’s hair came at me, bouffe-ing luxuriantly from the screen, saying “bugger” and “um” a lot as it advanced slowly towards famous women. There was much annoying blinking – the lashes of those pleading blue peepers batting a gust through the multiplex. Never watch a Hugh Grant film if you have just had your own hair done, as the saying went. So, how is it that the two most irreverent screen turns I’ve seen in the past six months have come from this cucumber sandwich of an actor?
He was irresistible in Paddington 2, playing a narcissistic actor, Phoenix Buchanan, who was out to destroy our best bear. He has also been brilliant, comb-overed and devious, in A Very English Scandal (which concludes on Sunday) as Jeremy Thorpe – the 70s Liberal MP attempting to have his gay lover murdered. The same actor who stuttered his way through a parade of porridge-y romcoms is now excelling in roles that uncork his suavely carnal side, and pour liberally from the bottle.
In fairness, Grant’s charm always derived from scepticism. It is the touchstone of his Englishness, more than “poshness” or emotional inarticulacy. Remember the scene in Notting Hill where he turns down Julia Roberts, for no reason? “Can I just say no to your kind request and leave it at that?” Those few seconds captured the truth, which is that he’s too clever to take Hollywood’s commercial love-packaging seriously. (“Physically she has a very big mouth. When I was kissing her, I was aware of a faint echo,” is how he described the experience.) Of course, the script required the character to immediately change his mind, and race across town to announce his love at a press junket. FYI, I’ve tried this, and publicists do not like it.
Bridget Jones proved he was more alive when playing the villain, although he was rarely allowed. I assumed he had more or less retired in the years after, frustrated at having to be winsome for a living. He found some substance, too. His most high-profile work in the past decade has been testifying to the abuses of British tabloids as part of the Leveson inquiry. He is still campaigning against the decision to abandon the inquiry, which David Cameron promised would be in two parts. The current government, needing press support, has declined to greenlight the sequel. (Reassuring that Theresa May knows when not to follow through on a Cameron idea, isn’t it?)
And here he is at 57, free of the romantic-lead straitjacket, doing his most shimmering, engaging work. Like the women of 1994, I have fallen for him, too. He no longer coasts on a wave of his own hair, spouting platitudes of love. Quite the opposite. In Florence Foster Jenkins, his character is immersed in the tactical connivances of love. Paddington 2’s Buchanan was a skewering portrayal of self-love, while Thorpe shows us the darkness of love repressed. As a fun bonus, he has sex on a towel with Ben Whishaw, AKA Paddington Bear, which must have prompted some insane fan-fiction.
It is not as if Grant has suddenly turned into Peter Lorre. I walked past him last year in a hotel, and he was still a big ol’ bag of handsome. But the increasing comfort and freedom he has discovered should inspire hope in the rest of us. He is playing out the ideal ageing process. Just be yourself, he twinkles at us, devilishly. Unless you are a tabloid journalist, or a cabinet minister, no doubt. Then you should probably be something else.
