“I frequently dream of having tea with the Queen.”
― Hugh Grant
“Brexit was a fantastic example of a nation shooting itself full in the face.”
― Hugh Grant
“My laziness is really profound. I’m really interested in where it comes from – it almost feels chemical. And we’ve all got ADD now, short attention span and all that.”
― Hugh Grant
“For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that’s just the price of being first sometimes.”
― Hugh Grant
“You know everyone loves to be the villain.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m not a hopeless romantic. I’m quite the reverse. I’m a nasty piece of work, an ego maniac.”
― Hugh Grant
“It’s very true that you can be both selfless and selfish at the same time. What we tend towards, particularly in filmmaking, is this binary sort of, ‘This is a good guy, this is a bad guy.’ And I quite like the fact that life is a bit more complex than that.”
― Hugh Grant
“I get very annoyed when people think I’m nice or diffident or a polite English gentleman. I’m a nasty piece of work, and people should know that.”
― Hugh Grant
“I just don’t believe in love at first sight anymore, even though I’ve based my whole career on the concept. In my experience, power, money and influence always attract the opposite sex. It’s something that I’ve always exploited – with good results.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’ve certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. I’ve been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I’ve accepted a part since then, because I’ve been given much better parts in films.”
― Hugh Grant
“A free press is the cornerstone of democracy; there is no question about that.”
― Hugh Grant
“All I know is for a number of years, if someone like me called police for a burglary, a mugging, or something happened to me, chances are that a photographer or reporter would turn up before a policeman.”
― Hugh Grant
“Frankly, I think I’m marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That’s been my experience of film acting.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.”
― Hugh Grant
“Strangely enough I’m better on a stage. I love that I feel like I blossom in front of a whole bunch of people.”
― Hugh Grant
“I couldn’t put my hand on my heart and say I think that being in a relationship is a natural state for a human being.”
― Hugh Grant
“Courage is soldiers fighting on the front line, or people living on the bread line.”
― Hugh Grant
“If you have a smothering parent, the effect it can apparently have on a child is to give them, in equal doses, a sense of too much self-esteem, because they are mummy’s little princess or prince, and low self-esteem. It affects future relationships.”
― Hugh Grant
“Most actors really love it, that’s what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they’ll read a script and think, that’s an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.”
― Hugh Grant
“The truth is, I’d never seen a Cary Grant film. Since then I have watched his stuff and it’s astounding, but I don’t see any similarity between us. Except for the fact that I’m told he used to wear ladies’ underwear, which is something I also do.”
― Hugh Grant
“I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.”
― Hugh Grant
“As it is, I have a limited range as an actor – light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.”
― Hugh Grant
“I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages. They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o’clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that’s what keeps marriages together.”
― Hugh Grant
“’Notting Hill?’ Does that poke fun at being British? Maybe it does. In ‘Mickey Blue Eyes,’ that’s kind of the point: the clash of worlds, the unlikely combo of a respectable Englishman and a mob guy. If you take out the Britishness, you don’t really have much.”
― Hugh Grant
“There was a phase in my career in my late 20s and 30s when I was doing strange, arty-farty Euro films that were, you could tell, never had much chance of any release anywhere in the world.”
― Hugh Grant
“I used to dream about Gorbachev before he lost power. I’d go into a panic because I was meeting him, and I had nothing to wear. I’d ask my brother what to do, and he’d tell me to wear my dressing gown. I’d tell him I can’t – it’s too horrible. He’d tell me to wear his as well. So I’d meet Gorbachev wearing two dressing gowns.”
― Hugh Grant
“Although I’m largely doing other things in life, it’s very nice occasionally to put my toe back in the waters of show business.”
― Hugh Grant
“I dreaded the dance scene in ‘Love Actually’ more than having my teeth extracted.”
― Hugh Grant
“Some newspapers in Britain have become closer to these kind of mafia families. They wield an incredible power. They choose our governments, they choose our prime ministers, and they live above the law.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think I’m rather young and sprightly, but then you see pictures of yourself and think, ‘Who is that old man?’ and I realise I’m not as young as I thought I was.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m such a chronic relativist, I can’t hold down a strong opinion about many things long enough.”
― Hugh Grant
“With 2 movies opening this summer, I have no relaxing time at all. Whatever I have is spent in a drunken stupor.”
― Hugh Grant
“The moral of filmmaking in Britain is that you will be screwed by the weather.”
― Hugh Grant
“When I think about actors I know, I’d much rather hear about who they’re shagging than what film they’re doing next.”
― Hugh Grant
“Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It’s a very sexy environment.”
― Hugh Grant
“The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.”
― Hugh Grant
“The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor.”
― Hugh Grant
“Plus, teaching brings home to you very fast that you actually know nothing. I didn’t realize that before.”
― Hugh Grant
“Neither Elizabeth or I are keen to do a real-life couple on the screen. It’s not very electric.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think that’s the whole point of Bridget Jones. It’s all about that it’s okay to fail.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think maybe in a way it gets worse because you come in with a real reputation and they’ve paid you lots of money and all that.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t think there’s much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.”
― Hugh Grant
“I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I… probably can’t!”
― Hugh Grant
“But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you’re an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.”
― Hugh Grant
“And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee… It’s the slave quality that I find very alluring.”
― Hugh Grant
“And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It’s incredibly, mind numbingly slow.”
― Hugh Grant
“Basically, my life is so boring, it’s embarrassing.”
― Hugh Grant
“Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you’re quite battle-scarred.”
― Hugh Grant
“I had Courtney Love’s left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn’t know where to look.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t particularly like babies. I don’t mind them for about four minutes. That’s my max. After that I can’t quite see what everyone’s fussing about.”
― Hugh Grant
“But when you’re a celebrity, you discover that you’re no longer the pursuer, but the one being pursued. That’s one of the disappointments I have had since becoming a single man.”
― Hugh Grant
“I look at life and I see some very happy relationships, but I also see the vast majority as not being that happy.”
― Hugh Grant
“I have no doubt that I’d be a marvelous father. Maybe not when they’re tiny, but when they’re a little bit older, I think I’d be rather good.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m horrible in the mornings. I’m grumpy.”
― Hugh Grant
“I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m quite proud of some of the films I’ve done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they’re unpretentious and entertaining. I’m proud of having made unpretentious choices.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m very unrelaxed doing a newspaper interview.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m a terrible vacillator; I can be sure of something one day and change my mind the next.”
― Hugh Grant
“It’s very rare in life to be sure about something – particularly when it’s an issue.”
― Hugh Grant
“At home, I hardly ever leave London. I don’t like the countryside in England.”
― Hugh Grant
“Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made ‘Maurice’ in the 1980s, I’ve been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think there’s something unromantic about marriage. You’re closing yourself off.”
― Hugh Grant
“Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No, No, No. Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No one ever said that was a good idea.”
― Hugh Grant
“It’s always more fun to be an anti-hero. They’re more interesting.”
― Hugh Grant
“Theater has always been much more fun. You get a laugh, and it’s really encouraging.”
― Hugh Grant
“My mother was a teacher.”
― Hugh Grant
“Something about teaching is curiously attractive, actually. I don’t know what it is.”
― Hugh Grant
“After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor’s Studio in London. I don’t think they did me any good at all.”
― Hugh Grant
“My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, ‘What would be the coolest is contemporary art – it will make me look young and interesting.’ I’m more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m quite jealous of my Scottish relations, in whose culture everyone, in a Jane Austen kind of way, got married very young, when you’re too young to be cynical or jaded and just started having children.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think marriage is only necessary if you’ve got children. It’s quite nice for them.”
― Hugh Grant
“The angry Scot is a cliche not without some foundation. That’s the Lowland Scot – I’m a Highlander. We’re particularly lovely and charming.”
― Hugh Grant
“The emphasis in ‘Notting Hill’ was perhaps, I thought, slightly more on the romance than on the comedy. But I think ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’ is maybe slightly more on the comedy. And the tone on ‘Mickey Blue Eyes,’ it’s a far sillier film.”
― Hugh Grant
“If it’s a choice between doing a film and not doing a film, I’d rather not. But then, you remember that you’re supposed to be earning a living and that it’s your career.”
― Hugh Grant
“It’s really frightening, American food on the whole. That’s what always strikes me, coming from Europe: There’s just so much of it! Then you plop down in front of the TV and watch ads for Weight Watchers. ‘Lose weight now!’ Well, eat less!”
― Hugh Grant
“My whole history of being an actor is unusual and slightly disgraceful because it should be something you burn to do.”
― Hugh Grant
“I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I’m learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.”
― Hugh Grant
“For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m a terrible actor. I’m still learning. When I first started, I wish I knew then to trust myself more, really. I was in a terrible panic in the early part of my career.”
― Hugh Grant
“There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby’s or something.”
― Hugh Grant
“I suppose after ‘Four Weddings’ I was very busy for a bit, and I imagined that was my career, but I never had that thing of, ‘I’m burning to be an actor. If I don’t act, I’m not alive.’ I’ve never had that.”
― Hugh Grant
“Like lots of people who say, ‘I’m going to write a novel,’ it’s actually more comfortable to think I could write a novel than to discover that you can’t.”
― Hugh Grant
“If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you’re 40 ft. high, it’s rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it’s actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can – to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.”
― Hugh Grant
“Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of acting: character acting and lead acting. And in my life, to begin with, in the 1980s, it was all character acting. And then when, by fluke, through ‘Four Weddings’, I got into doing lead parts, it’s a completely different thing.”
― Hugh Grant
“A lot of actors look at scripts and think, ‘How will this stretch me as an actor?’ But I always thought, ‘Do I want to turn the page? Is this going to make people laugh?’”
― Hugh Grant
“Comedy is probably a way of dealing with anxiety. Sometimes it’s a way of dealing with pain.”
― Hugh Grant
“I think the part of my acting career where I’ve been more successful, I’ve been incredibly cushioned. People are much too nice to you. You go into politics, and people are absolutely brutal. You’ve got proper enemies, and they’re vicious. It’s very invigorating.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.”
― Hugh Grant
“I get more satisfaction out of comedy stuff. I’m a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.”
― Hugh Grant
“Throughout my life, whenever I thought I’m dancing welI, I’m not.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m not a great believer in marriages as an institution, or even in very long term relationships. I’m not sure we’re built that way.”
― Hugh Grant
“I certainly hated actors and, more importantly, they hated me.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’ve got four houses in my street. I live in two, and the others are empty. I’ll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.”
― Hugh Grant
“I had a kiss with Raquel Welch’s daughter – she was a very naughty kisser.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’ve always dreaded the sea – in fact, I get terribly seasick.”
― Hugh Grant
“I slightly lost my enthusiasm for most acting, but I’ve done some little bits and pieces – curiosities.”
― Hugh Grant
“’The Lair of the White Worm’ is quite a strange film. It’s difficult to be good when you’re saying lines that have been translated from Spanish to English by someone who speaks French.”
― Hugh Grant
“I wasn’t aware I was trading on my good name; I’ve never had a good name.”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t want to see the end of popular print journalism.”
― Hugh Grant
“This guy Simon Helberg, who’s in ‘Florence Foster Jenkins,’ I might have been vaguely patronizing to him because he hadn’t done films before. Gradually, you realize, not only is the guy a much bigger star than me, he’s maybe the richest man I’ve ever met.”
― Hugh Grant
“I was fat-shamed the other day on a British newspaper. The headline was ‘Four Bellies and a Turkey Neck.’ They weren’t wrong. I looked shocking.”
― Hugh Grant
“I have this absurd syndrome where I get these out-of-the-blue, pathetic panic attacks. It’ll be in a very easy, simple scene when everything is going swimmingly, and then suddenly, bang, I’m shvitzing and can’t remember my lines.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’ve driven people mad on films that I’ve made – I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process – everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!”
― Hugh Grant
“I have known a few good marriages, but very few. And others look to me like they’re pretty miserable. I don’t really think that’s a recipe for happiness.”
― Hugh Grant
“When I finished my degree at Oxford, I went and acted for a bit. And I was appalling. And with each part, I thought, ‘Well, that’s embarrassing. I’d better do one more to show people I’m not that bad.’ And, in fact, instead of a taking a year, that’s gone on for 35 years.”
― Hugh Grant
“I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I’m learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.”
― Hugh Grant
“I never meant to be in romantic comedies; it’s just what ended up happening. But they are tricky, in a post-1960s sexual revolution way. It was easier when you couldn’t have sex scenes: everything crackled very nicely. They’re not easy.”
― Hugh Grant
“I’m a great believer in eccentrically-shaped modern families. Because I’ve seen them work so well. And as long as everyone loves each other, it can work very well.”
― Hugh Grant
“If every play was three weeks, I’d do lots of plays. It’s just the idea of six months, I think, that might drive me a bit nuts.”
― Hugh Grant
“Love scenes are extremely difficult. You’re always within a millimeter of sentimentality and ‘yuck.’”
― Hugh Grant
“I don’t hate L.A., but I’m nervous about becoming one of those people who has a ferocious interest in how films did at the box office that weekend and, you know, would want to meet for egg-white omelets in the morning.”
― Hugh Grant
“At my school, which was all boys, I played almost exclusively lady parts. When I say lady parts, I mean parts that were ladies. To actually play lady parts would be weird, even by English standards.”
― Hugh Grant
“In ‘The Sound of Music,’ I was a von Trapp daughter in a white dress with a blue satin sash, and my line was, ‘I’m Brigitta. I’m 12, and all I want is a good time.’ I got a laugh. And I was so delighted, I laughed, too. Sadly, that’s a problem I still have – onstage, I laugh hysterically at how funny I am.”
― Hugh Grant
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