After leading an aw-shucks assortment of romantic comedies in the first part of his career, Hugh Grant has enjoyed an acting renaissance that has seen him playing all sorts of dislikable narcissists and oddballs over the last decade.
He dubbed this new phase recently as his “freak-show era.” As the murderous Mr. Reed in this week’s religious-horror flick Heretic, he takes his act to a terrifying new level.
“Mr. Reed was so deliciously complex and f***ed up,” Grant, 64, says of the part. “It was daring, it was unusual … I had to know more about him.”
In the film, which opens in theatres Friday, Grant plays an evil homeowner who traps two young missionaries (The Fabelmans’ Chloe East and Yellowjackets’ Sophie Thatcher) when they make a mistake and knock on the wrong door.
Mr. Reed engages his two hapless victims in a theological discussion using, among other things, the board game Monopoly to make the girls question their faith and the existence of an afterlife. When they ask to leave, things take a far more sinister turn.
Grant, who made a name for himself charming moviegoers (and his leading ladies) in 1990s films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill before forever cementing himself in cinema history with a dance to the Pointer Sisters in the 2003 holiday classic Love Actually, is now relishing being a guy audiences are going to really find distasteful.
Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who also co-wrote A Quiet Place, Grant says he initially took some convincing before agreeing to the part.
“I had to make sure I didn’t hate them, so I Zoomed with them, and they seemed weird, but agreeably weird,” he chuckles in a Zoom call from Los Angeles. “I watched A Quiet Place and thought that was a work of genius.”
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Grant spoke more about this new phase of his career, shared his thoughts on the afterlife, revealed his Monopoly game strategy and revealed what young Hugh would have thought of where he ended up.
Horror movies have been having a moment at the cinema for the past 15 years. Were you hoping you’d get a call asking you to be a part of one?
I can’t say that I was. But I have been watching with interest as horror movies have almost single-handedly kept cinemas open, which is an interesting phenomenon. Someone said to me, ‘Well, actually, there’s really no point in watching a horror movie on streaming by yourself.’ They were right. You need to be around other people to get the collective gasps and feel the menace in the room.
Did the writers and directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, have to work hard in convincing you to hop on board to play such an evil guy in Mr. Reed?
It was an easy yes. I admire what (film studio) A24 have been doing. But I’m still getting over Midsommar. My wife and I had to go to counselling because we watched that film by mistake once … Be careful. We watched it by mistake. We were sitting at home feeling a bit sad and exhausted and I thought we needed something light. So I went through a pile of DVDs that came from the Academy and said, ‘Here’s one. You’re Swedish. This is Swedish. It’s called Midsommarand it looked quite fun and bright and jolly. But it wasn’t.
Heretic had its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September and people were raving about your performance in the film. Do you know when you’re turning in a good performance?
I probably live like every other actor in a permanent state of anxiety, paranoia and self-loathing. But there were a couple of moments when I was making this with our extremely nice Canadian crew in Vancouver where these hardened electricians and grips would come up and say something encouraging at the end of the day and I’ve never had that happen before.
Did this make you rethink the afterlife and whether we might already be living in a simulation?
The simulation theory is very interesting, isn’t it? I didn’t really know about simulation theory … I hope we’re not in a simulation. I hate the idea that I’m just some kind of avatar.
At one point in the film, Mr. Reed breaks out the board game Monopoly to prove a point about how many world religions are just a copy of one another. It got me thinking about how much I loved playing Monopoly as a teenager. I imagine you also played Monopoly. Did you have a strategy for that game?
Good question. My 11-year-old son is a master of Monopoly. Duplicitous. Evil. Greedy. He’s going to be an investment banker, I can see. I can’t beat him. He’s a great believer in the orange (properties). He’s done the research. Apparently, you should buy the orange properties. Why do people not like the yellow ones?
Because they’re so expensive? I always liked buying the cheaper ones at the top of the board — Mediterranean Avenue and Baltic Avenue.
That’s right. You put hotels on them quickly.
I’m curious about the career shift that started taking place a decade ago when you appeared in Cloud Atlas for the Wachowskis. What led to that?
It just happened, really. My romantic-comedy wave finally crashed onto the beach in about 2010. When the waves had receded this is the sort of thing that started coming my way. Thanks to the Wachowskis for being the first people to think of counter-casting me. I’ve enjoyed it. It brought me back to where I started as an actor, which is character acting.
Are you ever scared of failure?
Permanently. I’m terrified.
In a few weeks, everyone is going to be getting ready for their annual re-watch of Love Actually. I know you hated dancing to the Pointer Sisters’ Jump in one of the film’s most memorable scenes. But is there a song you would have been OK dancing to?
There’s no song in the world that would have made me want to do that scene. It’s impossible to imagine a human being who would want to have to freak out by themselves at 7 in the morning in front of a grumpy film crew without any alcohol in their system. It’s just a living nightmare, as I’ve said many times. I put that scene off so many times.
You’ve been an actor for over 40 years. What would young Hugh have thought of where he ended up?
(Pauses) I don’t know. What did young Hugh want? He wanted to be a footballer and score three goals in the World Cup final like Geoff Hurst. So I guess he’d think of me as a failure.