Hugh Grant: Actor, ex ad-man, Seinfeld fan and Japanese idol
CBC Archives | Posted: September 24, 2018 12:30 PM | Last Updated: September 24, 2020
Hugh Grant wasn't always famous?
That's one of the takeaways from a wide-ranging interview Grant gave to Midday back in 1996, as he was promoting the Toronto-shot movie Extreme Measures.
Grant, still with the trademark floppy hair of his early career, was there to talk about the film, but he ended up looking back on his path to stardom.
'You weren't a child actor?'
No, Grant was not a child actor. The question came up, as Midday's Tina Srebotnjak asked Grant how he ended up going into acting.
Grant explained that he worked on a student film while going to Oxford University, which got him noticed. That led to opportunities in the business.
"I thought it'd be amusing for a year to do that while I worked out what I really wanted to do," said Grant, in the interview which aired on Sept. 24, 1996. "And here I am, an embarrassing number of years later, still doing it."
"So, what — you just got the [acting] bug?" Srebotnjak asked.
"Yeah, I suppose so, yeah," said Grant. "You just want to finally crack it. And then you think: 'I'll give it up as soon as I've cracked it.' And you never quite do."
He used to write ad copy
Yes, he had a real job before he was an actor. He wrote copy for advertisements.
"I loved it," said Grant. "I used to write commercials for Mighty White sliced bread, with 'all the goodness of brown, but the great taste of white.'"
He mentioned that he'd also worked on Red Stripe beer ads, adding, "I wish I had a Red Stripe lager now."
He was big in Japan
"What was it that made you an overnight sensation in Japan?" asked Srebotnjak.
Grant explained that he became well-known in Japan after starring in Maurice — a film adapted from an E.M. Forster novel, produced by Ismail Merchant and directed by James Ivory — years earlier.
"They just adore things that are very, very British and that was an incredibly British film and all these young girls just went nuts," said Grant, noting that two books were then written about him in that country.
He joked he'd read translated versions and found them "pretty riveting."
Canadians, comedy and Seinfeld
Having spent time filming Extreme Measures in Canada, Grant said he felt at home here, as he was able to watch many British sitcoms on Canadian TV.
Grant said he suspected Canadians understood U.K. humour because they were "half-British" to some degree.
He also defended the reputation of American sitcoms and named some of his favourites.
"If you watch their sitcoms, their best sitcoms are unbelievably funny, I think, and well-written," said Grant, calling Seinfeld "superb" and mentioning his appreciation for Friends and Murphy Brown as well.