British film star: Today dear grumpy instead of romantic: Hugh Grant is 65

For the inventor of the innocent bedroom view, it is probably difficult to get rid of the image of the hopeless romantic. Or, Hugh grant? The British actor celebrates his 65th birthday on Tuesday (September 9th) – and he is still fighting to have become the face of the great romantic comedies in the 90s and 2000s.

Because, honestly, what roles do you think of first when it comes to grant? On the terrifying Mr. Reed from “Heretic” (2024), which he plays psychotically well? Or to William from “Notting Hill” (1999), who ended up embodied Anna, and David from “actually love” (2003), the lovely prime minister? Exactly.

Grant himself does not like such comparisons, at least before interviews with the British, please do not ask for the so-called Romcoms, the romantic comedies that move the heart but are not necessarily suitable for an Oscar nomination. Otherwise Grant could become “Grumpy”. About his “Notting Hill” character he even told the “Vanity Fair” that he was “abandoned”.

Is Grant better than a grumpy villain?

Around the premiere of “Heretic”, the Brit preferred to talk about why the role as a villain is so much fun. “I’m not the only actor who likes to play the villain,” said Grant. There is usually more to get out of these roles. They are more profound.

However, it does not come completely away from the supposedly shallow films: This year the fourth part of the “Bridget Jones” series – with Hugh Grant as a gray Daniel.

He played villains more often in the 1980s, said Grant. “I should have continued with all of this, but I don’t.” His filmography actually includes much more than the role of the dreamy man who conquers or breaks the heart. In “Wonka” (2023) he even played a Umpa-Lumpa. But that’s how it is with the image.

He had “the terrible suspicion that we are naturally quite evil, dark, greedy, violent, jealous, unattractive, vain and narcissistic, and that actors always feel attracted to what she is closer back to the roots of her own DNA,” said Grant, and clearly contradicted the image of man, which is conveyed in a “Romcom”.

For his impressive representation of the kidnapper with a dark psyche in “Heretic”, Grant was again nominated for the Golden Globe this year, for the seventh overall. So far, however, he has only won the film award for his cinematic breakthrough in “Four weddings and a death” 30 years ago.

The adored at the time was not Robert, but Andie Macdowell, Grant’s romantic look – the amazed eyebrows with an inviting smile – but was the same.

After scandals now calm family life

Grant did not always experience the romantic comedy in private life. The arrest after a response with a prostitute in the 90s in Los Angeles after him, Grant was also the victim of the listening scandal, who sealed the end of the British newspaper “News of the World” in 2011. For years, reporters had listened to the mobile phones of celebrities, royals and politicians.

Grant has been married to the Swedish television producer Anna Eberstein since 2018, with whom he has three children, plus a daughter and a son from a different relationship.

In Grant’s youth, his own parents didn’t have much to do with film. “My mother was a churchgoer and wanted me to become an archbishop of Canterbury,” said Grant once in the BBC.