Romcom veteran Hugh Grant, with his performance as a creepy theologist in a new horror called Heretic, has been getting l-o-v-e – and according to one of the movie’s directors: the actor went a little crazy with the role.
Grant has acted the movie in the role of Mr Reed, a man who opens his door to two young Mormon missionaries ; Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East. Its efforts to Christianize him are far more sinister than they had ever imagined, with Grant delivering what people have come to describe as chilling.
In a new interview with GQ, directors Bryan Woods and Scott Beck wondered some of the criticisms online about Grant resorting to the tics he used while playing a bumbling romcom characters in movies like Notting Hill, such as stammering and giving a big toothy grin).
Defending Grant, Woods said: Hugh is till the end a character actor, thus he’s going full proactive into Mr Reed – he’s investing skin, marrow, essence, he barely or doesn’t think about himself on those levels.
Although he agreed that he and Beck possibly considered the traditional Grant traits, laughing that they overused them in this new picture, Still used the Grant deep thinking about the horror role.
“I have never heard anything about the thought process as detailed as what Hugh has described,” he said. Word of mouth, we spent four months in pre-production, emailing each other essays. He’d write something like, ‘Does Reed come from this part of the world?’ or ‘Does he think this?’ and we would respond … when I say that out loud – it sounds so arrogant, but it was actually quite enjoyable.
‘So when it comes to the way he weaponises certain tics that we’re familiar with, my intuition would be that he’s not even aware of it,’ and that may be true to an extent, she admitted. I mean every single take you do with him is a little bit different, and that’s because he’s right there, and he really is the character at that point.
In a four-star review of Heretic, out in cinemas now, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: “In Heretic, Hugh Grant’s big horror turn is more of a wink than a twist: after all, he is still Hugh Grant. He still throws himself into his words passionately and tucks his head into his shoulder when he’s done like a puppy who just did something he was scolded for.
“He still measures the rare doses of truth telling with the same casual shrug and a chuckle of laughter when compromising with a gesture of weakness. In short, he’s got personality.”
