Hugh Grant meant to act for a year, then study art history
Hugh Grant only agreed to act so he could save money for postgraduate study in art history. At 32 he was ready to walk away, until the script of Four Weddings and a Funeral made him laugh. The film became Britain's biggest earner to date and turned him into an overnight global star.
Hammersmith Hospital was his birthplace, on 9 September 1960, and he grew up nearby in Chiswick, west London. His father, a former Seaforth Highlanders officer, ran a carpet business and painted watercolours; his mother taught Latin, French and music in state schools for over 30 years, and Grant has credited her with any acting genes he has. A scholarship took him to Latymer Upper School, where he played rugby and cricket and appeared on the quiz show Top of the Form, and another sent him to New College, Oxford, in 1979 to read English.
At Oxford acting was a hobby. He played Fabian in Twelfth Night and starred in Privileged (1982), a film backed by the university. When an agent offered to represent him after a screening, he said no, still set on the Courtauld Institute. He changed his mind, then lost a part in The Bounty because he had no Equity card, and spent a year at the Nottingham Playhouse earning one. In between he tended the grounds at Craven Cottage, wrote radio adverts for Red Stripe lager, and co-founded a comedy trio, The Jockeys of Norfolk, which did well at the 1985 Edinburgh Fringe.
His first lead, in Merchant-Ivory's Maurice (1987), won him a shared Volpi Cup in Venice with James Wilby. Many later jobs were what he mocked as Europuddings, with foreign scripts clumsily translated and English actors hired to sell the result in America. He also played Chopin in Impromptu.
Four Weddings (1994) grossed over $244 million worldwide and brought him a Golden Globe and a BAFTA, but also typecast him as its floppy-haired bachelor. Much later he took against-type roles, earning BAFTA nominations for Florence Foster Jenkins and for a vain actor in Paddington 2, and Emmy nominations for playing Jeremy Thorpe. He has been openly scornful of celebrity culture and a prominent critic of News Corporation during the phone hacking scandal. A small survey of visitors to Notting Hill, meanwhile, found many had arrived with a clear picture of the area from his film.
Source: Hugh Grant
