Ancestry toyouth
Grant was born at Hammersmith Hospital in London, England, the son of Fynvola Susan (ne MacLean) and Captain James Murray Grant. Genealogist Antony Adolph described Grant's family history as "a colourfulAnglo-Scottish tapescheck outof warriors, empire-builders andfashion design school aristocracy." Grant is from an extended line of Scots military men, doctors and explorers, including William Drummond and Dr. James Stewart. John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl, Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham, Rt Hon. Sir Evan Nepean, and previous British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval are a couple of of hisn'table maternal antecedents. Grant's grandfather, Major James Murray Grant, DSO, a nativeof Inverness in Scotland, was decorated for bravery and leadership at Dunkirk during WWII.
Grant's father, Capt. Grant, was trained at Sandhurst and served with the oceanforth Highlanders for eight years in Malaya, Germany and Scotland. He ran a carpet firm, pursued hobbies this type ofs golf and watercolouring, and liftd his family in Chiswick, West London, where the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane. In September 2006, a spread of Capt. Grant's paintings was hosted by the bathroom toiletMartin Gallery in a charity exhibition, organised by his mythicalson, known as"James Grant: 30??Years of Watercolours." His mother, Fynvola Grant, wbecause the nice-granddaughter of Sir Evan Colville Nepean (CB), whose father, Rev. Canon Evan Nepean, served because the Canon of Westminster and was Chaplain In Ordinary to Queen Victoria. She worked as a facultyteacher and taught Latin, French and music for greater than 30??years within the state schools of West London. She died in Hounslow, London, on the age of 65, in July 2001, after an 18-month conflictwith pancreatic cancer.
Grant's famous RP accessoryis an inheritance from his mother and, on within the Actors Studio in 2002, he credited her with "any acting genes that [he] may need." Both his parents were youngstersof military families, and, despite his parents' posh upbringings and backgrounds, Grant has stated that his family was not almethodsaffluent at the same time ashe was growing up. Grant's childhood passions included shooting and hunting, especially together with his grandfather in Scotland. Grant's elder brother, James "Jamie" Grant, is a hitful banker as Managing Director, Head of Healthcare, Consumer, & Retail Investment Banking Coverage, at JPMorgan Chase in ny.
Education
Grant started his education at Hogarth basicSchool in Chiswick. From 196nineto one978, he attended Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket and footbinterested within the varsity. He also represented Latymer at the preferred quiz show, Top of the shape, an educational festivalbetween two teams of 4and secondary school students each. Chris Hammond, his shapeteacher in 197fiveand later the assistant head of los angelestymer, told People magazine that Grant was "a clever boy among clever boys." In 1979, he wat the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford where he studied English literature and graduated with 2:1 honours. Grant was apparently memorable at Oxford: actress Annan opportunityllor has recalled, "I first met Hugh at a celebration at Oxford Zoo. there has been anythingmagical about him. He was a celebrity even then, with no desiredone anything." Viewing acting as nomore thing than an artistic outlet, he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society and starred in a hitful touring production of Twelfth Night.
Young earner
After making his debut as Hughie Grant within the Oxford-financed Privileged (1982), Grant dabbled in a number of jobs: he wrote bokreviews, worked as assistant groundsman at Fulham Football Club, tried his hand at tutoring, wrote comedy sketches for televisionshows, and was hired by Talkback Productions to write down and bring radio commercials for professionalducts this type ofs Mighty White bread and Red Stripe lager. to procure his Equity (UK) card, he joined the repertory theatre Nottingham Playspaceand lived for a year at Park Terrace within the Park Estate, Nottingham. uninterested insmall acting parts, he created his own comedy revue known asThe Jockeys of Norfolk with friends Chris Lang and Andy Taylor. The groas much asured London pub comedy circuit with stops on the George IV in Chiswick, Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Vegreatand The King's Head in Islington. Starting on a low note, The Jockeys of Norfolk eventually proved a success on the Edinburgh Festival after their sketch at the Nativity, told as an Ealing comedy, garnered them a place at the BBC2 televisiondisplayknown asEdinburgh Nights. in this time, Grant also appeared within the atre productions of plays this type ofs An Inspector Calls, girlWindermere's Fan, and Coriolanus.
Movie career
Grant's first leading role came in Merchant-Ivory's 1987 Edwardian drama, Maurice, adapted from E.M. Forster's novel of the similar name. He and co-star James Wilby shared the Volpi Cup for many efficientactor on the VegreatFilm Festival for his or her portrayals of Cantabrigian collegians Clive Durham and Maurice Hall, respectively. through the los angeleste 1980s and early 1990s, Grant balanced small roles on television with rare film work, which come withd a supporting role within the Dawning (1988), opposite Anthony Hopkins and a turn as Lord Byron in a Goya Award-winning Spanish production known asRemando Al Viento (1988). He also portrayed a fewanother real life figures during in his early career this type ofs Charles Heidsieck in Champagne Charlie and as Hugh Cholmondeley in BAFTA Award-nominated White Mischief.
In 1990, he made cameo appearance within the sport/crime drama the large Man, opposite Liam Neeson, and by which Grant assumed a Scottish accent. The film explores the lifetime of an Scottish miner (Neeson) who becomes unemployed during a union strike. In 1991, he played Julie Andrews' gay son within the ABC made-for-televisionmovie Our Sons.
In 1992, he appeared in Roman Polanski's film Bitter Moon, portraying a quickidious and properBritish tourist who's married, but finds himself enticed by the sexual hedonism of a seductive French woman and her embittered, paraplegic American husband. The film was known asan "anti-romantic opus of sexual obsession and viciousty" by the bathington Post. His other work in period pieces this type ofs Ken Russell the los angelesir of the White Worm (1988), award-winning Merchant-Ivory drama The Remains of the Day (1993) and (as Frdric Chopin in) Impromptu (1991) was largely unnoticed. He later known asthis phase of his career "hilarious," relating to his early movies as "Europuddings, where you will have a French script, a Spanish director, and English actors. The script would typicallybe written by a foreigner, badly translated into English. after which they'd get English actors in, since they thought that was how to sell it to America."
At 32, Grant claimed to be getting ready to giving up the acting profession but was surprised by the script of 4 Weddings and a Funeral (FWAAF). "should you read as many bad scripts as I did, you'd know the waygrateful you're while you return across one where the fellow actually is funny," he later recalled. Released in 1994, FWAAF became the top-grossing British film up to now with an internationalwide box office in far more than $244??million, making Grant an overnight international star. The film was nominated for 2 Academy Awards, and among numerous awards won by its cast and crew, it earned Grant his first and only Golden Globe Award for many efficientPerformance by an Actor in a movie - Musical Or Comedy and a BAFTA Award for many efficientActor in a number one Role. It also temporarily typecast him because the lead character, Charles, a bohemian and debonair bachelor. Grant and Curtis saw it as an inside joke thon the star, as a result of the portionshe played, was assumed to have the individualality of the screenwriter, who's understood for writing about himself and his own life. Grant later expressed:
Grant in his breakthrough performance as Richard Curtis's alter ego, Charles, in 4Weddings and a Funeral.
AlalthoughI owe whatever success I've needed to '4Weddings and a Funeral,' it did become frustrating after a little that folkmade two assumptions: One was that i used to be that personality- once If truth be told nothing may well be farther from the reality, as I'm sure Richard would inform you - and the opposite frustrating thing was thon they thought that's all i coulddo. i guess, because those films happened to achieve success, nobody, maybeunderstandably, ... bothered to rentall of the opposite films I'd done.
199fivesaw the discharge of Grant's first studio-financed Hollywoodenproject, Chris Columbus's comedy Nine Months. althougha success on the box office, it was almaximumuniversally panned by critics. the bathington Post known asit a "grotesquely pandering caper" and singled out Grant's performance, as a kid psychiatrist reacting unfavourably to his girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy, for his "insufferable muggings." the similar year, he played supporting portionsas Emma Thompson's suitor in Ang Lee Academy Award-winning adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility and as a cartographer in 1917 Wales within the Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain. within the similar year he also performed his talent in Academy Award-winning Restoration.
Grant then reunited with the director of FWAAF, Mike Newell, for the tragicomedy an extraordinarily Big Adventure that was labeled a "determinedly offbeat film" by the brand ny Times. Grant portrayed a littlechy, supercilious director of a repertory company in post-globalWar II Liverpool. Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "It shows that he has diversityas an actor," however the San Francisco Chronicle disapproved on grounds thon the film "plays like an arrogance production for Grant." JainternetMaslin, praising Grant as "superb" and "a touching cad under any circumstances," commented, "For him this film represents the street not taken. Made before 4Weddings and a Funeral was released, it captures Mr. Grant because the clever, versatile personalityactor he wbecause the n becoming, as opposed to the international dreamboat he's today."
Grant made his debut as a movie manufacturerwith the nineteen96 thriller severeMeasures, a commercial and vitalfailure. After a 3 year hiatus, in 1999, he paired with Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, which was brshould theatres by much of the similar team that was liable for FWAAF. This new Working Title production displaced FWAAF because the largest British hit within the history of cinema, with earnings equalling $363??million worldwide. because it'scame exemplary of recent romantic comedies in mainstream culture, the film was also received well by critics. CNN reviewer Paul Clinton said, "Notting Hill stands alone as another funny and listen totwarming story about love against all odds." Reactions to Grant's Golden Globe-nominated performance were varied, with Salon's Stephanie Zacharek criticizing that, "Grant's performance stands as a symbol of what is inproperwithout atting Hill. What's maddening about Grant is that he simplynever cuts the crap. He's become a type of actors who's all shambling self-caricature, from his twinkly crow's feet to the time-lapsed partcentury it takes him to truly get certainly one of his lines out." The movie provided both its stars an opportunity to satirize the woes of international notoriety, maximumnoted of which was Grant's turn as a fake-journalist who sits through a lifeless press junket with, whon the brand ny Times called, "a pleasingly funny deadpan." Grant also released his second production output, a fish-out-of-water mob comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, that year. It was dismissed by critics, performed modestly on the box office, and garnered its actor-manufacturermixed reviews for his starring role. Roger Ebert thought, "Hugh Grant is inproperfor the role [and] strikes one wrong note after which another," whereas Kenneth Turan, writing within the l. a. Times, said, "If he'd been at the Titanic, fewer lives would were lost. If he'd accompanied Robert Scott to the South Pole, the explorer would have lived to be 100. That's how smartHugh Grant is at rescuing doomed ventures."
at the same time aspromoting Woody Allen Small Time Crooks on NBC The Today displayin 2000, Grant told host Matt Lauer, t's my millennium of bastards.61]
Giving his most crucially acclaimed performance up to now, Grant plays Snooker as Will Freeman in a few Boy.
Small Time Crooks starred Grant, within the words of film critic Andrew Sarris, as "a petty, petulant, faux-Pygmalion art dealer, David, [who] is among the sleaziest and maximumunsympathetic characters Mr. Allen has ever created." In a task without his comic attributes, the brand ny Times wrote: "Mr. Grant deftly imbues his personalitywith exactly an perfectblfinishof cdamageand nasty calculation." A year later, his turn as an enthralling but womanising bokpublisher Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) was proclaimed by Variety to be "as sly an overthrow of a celebrity's polished posh - and great- poster symbolas any comic turn in memory." The movie, adapted from Helen Fielding's novel of the similar name, was a globalhit, earning $281??million worldwide. Grant was, in line with the bathington Post, fitting as "a cruel, manipulative cad, hiding behind the male god's countenance that he knows all too well."
Grant's "immaculate comic performance" (BBC) because the trust-funded womaniser, Will Freeman, within the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-selling novel a few Boy received raves from critics. Almaximumuniversally praised, with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, a few Boy (2002) was resolute by the bathington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to make a selectionmessiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishized coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywoodenendings." Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this agreeable heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs," at the same time asRoger Ebert observed that "the automobiley Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he's greater than a celebrity, he's a resource." Released an afternoon after the blockbuster Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, a few Boy was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, creating all of $129??million globally. The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, at the same time asthe London Film Critics Circle named Grant its most efficientBritish Actor and GQ honoured him as one of the maximummagazine's men of the year 2002. "His performance can only be described as revelatory," wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness." the brand ny Observer concluded: "[The film] gets maximumof its laughs from the evolved technologyof Hugh Grant in playing characters udiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and ladyizing and easily being too handa fewfor words-and with an English accessorybesides. in spite of everything, the film comes over as a multitudey delight, way to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance." a few Boy also marked a notable amendmentin Grant's boyish look. Gone were the floppy locks that had become his trademark, with Grant now sporting a cropped haircut. He has retained this bathroomk since.
Billy Bob Thornton (right) and Grant hold a press conference in Love Actually.
Grant was also paired with Sandra Bullock in Warner Bros.'s Two Weeks Notice, which made $199??million internationally but was judged poorly by proreviewers. The Village Voice concluded that Grant's creation of a spoiled billionaire fronting an actual estate business was "little greater than a Britishism machine."
Two Weeks realizewas by the two003 ensemble comedy, Love Actually, headlined by Grant because the British Prime Minister. A Christmas release by Working Title Films, the movie was promoted as "without equal romantic comedy" and accumulated $246??million on the international box office. It marked the directorial debut of wealthyard Curtis, who told the brand ny Times that Grant adamantly tempered the natureization of the role to make his personalitymore authoritative and not more haplessly charming than earlier Curtis incarnations. Roger Ebert claimed that "Grant has flowered right into a completely splendid romantic comedian" and has "such a lot self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as althoughhe tokthe role to be an even sport." Film critic Rex Reed, to the contrary, known asGrant's performance "an oversexed bachelor spin directly tony Blair" because the star "flirted with himself within the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style."
A speech delivered by Grant in Love Actually - where he extols the virtues of significant Britain and refuses to cave to the clickingure of its longstanding ally, the U.S. - was etched within the transatlantic memory as a satirical, wishful statement at the concurhireBush-Blair relationship. Tony Blair responded by saying, "i do know there is a little folksthat might really like me to do a Hugh Grant in Love Actually and tell America where to get off. however the adaptation between an even film and real life is that during real life there's the next day to come, the following year, the following lifetime to think aboutthe ruinous consequences of undeniableapplause."
Grant because the gratuitously nasty televisionpersonality, Martin Tweed, in American Dreamz.
In 2004, Grant reprised his role as Daniel Cleaver for a small part in Bridget Jones: the threshold of Reason, which, love its predecessor, made greater than $262??million commercially. Gone from the screen for 2 years, Grant next reteamed with Paul Weitz (a few Boy) for the black comedy American Dreamz (2006). Grant starred because the acerbic host of an Ameriam i able todol-like reality displaywhere, in line with Caryn James of the brand ny Times, "nothing is real ... except the black hole on the centre of the host's heart, as Mr. Grant takes Mr. Cowell's villainous act to its limit." American Dreamz failed financially but Grant was generously praised. He played his self-aggrandizing character, an amalgam of Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest, with smarmy self-loathing. The Boston Globe proposed that this "simplycould also be the greatcomic role that has almethodseluded Hugh Grant," and critic Carina Chocano said, "he's twice as enjoyable because the preening bad guy as he was because the bumbling smartguy."
In 2007, Grant starred opposite Drew Barrymore in a parody of popular culture and the music induscheck outknown asMusic and Lyrics. The Associated Press described it as "a unusual little hybrid of a romantic comedy that's simultaneously too fluffy and never whimsical enough." althoughhe neither listens to music nor owns any CDs, Grant learned to sing, play the piano, dance (a couple of mannered steps) and studied the wayisms of professionalminent musicians to organize for his role as a has-been pop singer, based loosely on Andrew Ridgeley. The Star-Ledger dismissed the performance, writing that "paper dolls have more depth." The movie, with its revenues totalling $145??million, allowed Grant to mock disposable pop stardom and fleeting celebrity through its washed-up lead character. in line with the San Francisco Chronicle, "Grant strikes exactly the most efficientnote in regards to Alex's career: He's too intelligent to not be slightly embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame." In 2009, Grant starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker within the romantic comedy Did You Hear concerning the Morgans?, which was a commercial in addition to a critical failure.
Filmmaker
In July 1994, Grant signed a two-year production take care of chateau Rock Entertainment and by October, he became founder and director of the united kingdom-based Simian Films Limited. He appointed his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, because the pinnacle of progressionto look for professionalspective projects. Simian Films produced two Grant carswithin the 1990s and lost a bid to sourcea few Boy to Robert De Niro's TriBeCa professionalductions. the corporate closed its U.S. office in 2002 and Grant resigned as director in December 2005. He has since said that his basicinterest remains in filmmaking because: "Acting is at most efficientan interpretative thing. it islike being a musician and playing another person's music. I've almethodsdesired to write down the music." In 2000, Grant joined the Supervisory Board of IM Internationalmedia AG, the facilityful Munich-based film and median organization. He has also served at the advisory board of Mark Milln and Kami Naghdi's U.K. Production company, Hogarth Pictures.
Attitude toward acting
Grant has known asbeing a hitful actor a mistake and has repeatedly talked of his hope that film stardom would simplybe "a phase" in his life, lasting not more than ten years. A self-confessed "committed and keennessate" perfectionist on a movie set, Grant has constantly opted to explain himself as a reluctant actor, who chooses to be neutral about his career and works mostly with friends from previous collaborations. Telling the brand ny Times that he need totruly love anythingbefore he can do it, he revealed that he chooses projects according to how well they're written and whether the nature he's being asked to play constitutes a comic bokangle to his personality.
