'Wedding's best man snags a star

0 Comments | Insight on the News, June 19, 1995 | by Gary Arnold

British actor Hugh Grant's recent movie success has made him the next hearththrob.

One of the curious sidelights of the emerging summer movie season will be the Hugh Grant festival. The blithe Welsh comedy The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill ... But Came Down a Mountain, which opened in mid-May, will be followed in July by Chris Columbus' Nine Months and An Awfully Big Adventure -- all starring Grant. A fourth Grant credit may surface before the summer is over: He played a cameo role in Restoration, a costume-adventure comedy that has lingered in inventory.

The burst of fame couldn't have happened to a nicer guy Last year, when he met the press on behalf of the romantic comedy Sirens, the consensus was, "What a charming and witty guy." His appeal on the screen was magnified by the pleasure of his company. In New York last month to promote Englishman, the 34-year-old actor remains in delightful form.

For example, he dismisses the indignation (expressed by scattered members of the movie press) that his performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral failed to be nominated for an Academy Award. "I couldn't have been less surprised at not being nominated says Grant. "I never thought of it as serious prospect, but people around the Nine Months set were t so enthusiastically that I did manage to work up a slight twinge of disappointment." He did win the Golden Globe Award as best actor for Weddings and the Chicago Film Critics Award as most promising actor.

But Grant had been accumulating attractive credits for several years: in the Merchant-Ivory film version of E.M. Forster's Maurice, in a disarming portrayal of Chopin in the offbeat biopic Impromptu, in a secondary role in Remains of the Day. He was even something of a saving grace in conspicuous stinkers: White Mischief, Lair of the White Worm and Bitter Moon.

It was Weddings that made him more than a potential star. His performance as the bewildered, lovelorn bachelor in that exceedingly British romantic comedy was obviously indispensable to the film's fluky success. And it confirmed his appeal decisively with a vast moviegoing public.

The Weddings phenomenon was in progress when Grant began shooting Englishman last summer in Wales. "It was my first occasion of working on a film where people wanted my autograph " he says. It also was the first time he had attracted systematic ill will from the British tabloid press. "I can't complain, since things are too good and I've always been perfectly nasty myself about British people who did well. Enjoyed it every time the papers were abominable to them," says Grant. "But it is true that the tabloids are out of control and keen to fabricate scandal on the slightest pretext. I was accused of insulting the hotel staff for joking remarks that are no different from what I ordinarily say to my mother. Once the tabloids finish with you, nothing retains a funny or affectionate connotation'"

A native Londoner, Grant has a degree in art history from New College, Oxford. He began acting as an undergraduate, suspecting that his education might not prepare him for anything more remunerative than "sounding pompous and authoritative on the subject of art, which is a very agreeable way to sound." His mother is a teacher. His father, recently retired as the London sales representative of an international carpet company, has turned to painting, specializing in watercolors that his art-wise son finds "very acceptable."

His first movie role was in a low-budget beau geste, Privilege, in 1983. (His theatrical experience was concentrated at the Nottingham Playhouse, where he advanced from several inanimate roles to speaking parts in Hamlet and Coriolanus. "systematic television and film work eventually led to the prestige production of Maurice in 1986.

Success in the aftermath of Weddings has, indeed, changed him, he says -- and he gratuitously offers fresh ammo to the tabloids. "I'm very bigheaded now," he quips. "Won't talk to any of my old friends. Thoroughly unpleasant to my girlfriend, but that seems to work out, since she's thoroughly unpleasant in return'

Englishman will be followed by Nine Months, a comedy about the anxieties of an expectant father. Julianne Moore plays the expectant mother. Then comes Adventure, which reunites him with Mike Newell, the director of Weddings. The follow-up movie is derived from a Beryl Bainbridge novel about the misadventures of an ingenue (played by newcomer Georgina Cates) who develops an unrequited crush on a director, played by Grant. "A very nasty, vicious, vitriolic character," the actor comments. "I liked it very much, and Mike insists it's the real me."

Will the Grant flair for light comedy preclude "heavy drama" Christopher Monger, the Welshman who wrote and directed Englishman, seems to evaluate the potential accurately when he remarks: "Hugh is obviously a major asset to romantic comedy, but there's nothing to prevent him from pushing himself toward tougher forms of satire. He's very anarchic and sharp and quick-witted in reality. He is not the repressed Englishman suggested by some of his roles, but he's able to plug into that stereotype easily for humorous effect. He can sum it up and play against the type simultaneously."