During the late nineties and early 2000s, the soft handsome characters in classic English romantic comedies were all the rage. And Hugh Grant was the leading face of them all. Grant gained fame with the 1994 ‘Four Weddings And A Funeral‘ release. He played Charles who although charming is unable to express his feelings to women. Observing the popularity of his character, Grant started to accept similar roles.
He performed in several romantic comedies like ‘Notting Hill‘ (1999), ‘Two Weeks Notice’ (2002), and ‘Music And Lyrics’ (2007). Grant became the sweetheart of any woman’s romantic fantasies. In a recent interview, Grant said he regrets assimilating the aspects of his romantic characters by which viewers “quite rightly were repelled.”
Hugh Grant Says He Is Not That “Stuttery, Blinky Guy” From ‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’
In ‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’ Charles always toiled with verbal expression and his struggle was always endearing. Hugh Grant too noticed this in the viewers when the film was first released. Talking with Vanity Fair, he said, “I thought, Oh well, this is the way of infinite wealth and success. People are eating up that person.” However, the actor claimed it to be his biggest mistake.
“The catastrophic mistake I made was that because Four Weddings was such a gigantic success,” Grant stated.
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Grant related that at the time these roles suited him perfectly. “The irony of the Richard Curtis parts I played is that they were actually character roles for me,” he explained. Curtis and Grant have paired up several times for ‘Four Weddings And A Funeral’, ‘Notting Hill’, and more. Grant claimed, “I’m not that stuttery, blinky guy.”
Grant Channeling The Character In Real Life Backfired
In conversation with David Canfield, Grant related that he was inspired by the viewers’ reaction to his awkwardly romantic character. Therefore, he acted like his fictional counterparts in reality. He said, “So I did him in real life: I started doing interviews. In my Golden Globe acceptance speech from 1995, I said, ‘I love you, gosh, blah blah. Thank you so much’ – what a d***.”
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Grant asserted, “I’m playing the character because I thought everyone was eating him up. It was never me at all.” The actor, however, forgot to factor in the transience of viewers’ attitudes over time. Over time, fans grew out of unrealistic romance, and “people quite rightly were repelled by it in the end.”
Hugh Grant is scheduled to appear on the big screens on 15 November 2024 in ‘Heretic’. In this horror, Grant’s character, Mr. Reed abducts two young missionaries. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2024.
