Hugh Grant Admits Thinking ‘Four Weddings’ Might Be ‘a Giant Turkey… but Was Clearly Wrong’
Pre-release jitters can get the best of anyone. Just ask Hugh Grant.
He had some trepidation about “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” his breakout movie, prior to its release. That’s according to his friend Sam Neill, who wrote in his upcoming memoir “Did I Ever Tell You This?” about some comments that Grant made before the film premiered, with a bit of his trademark British self-deprecation
“I had dinner in London with Hugh Grant soon after ‘Sirens,'” Neill wrote. “I asked him what he’d been up to. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘a piece of complete crap called “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” … Disaster. Absolute and utter rubbish.'”
Neill, who starred alongside Grant in “Sirens” (1994) and “Restoration” (1995), that Grant’s career was in part thanks to the success of “Four Weddings,” directed by Mike Newell from a script by Richard Curtis.
And Grant concurs, telling IndieWire in a statement, “I love Sam and miss him, and it’s true that we were all sure we’d made a giant turkey till the film had its first previews. I was clearly wrong and the film changed my life. It was the beginning of a happy friendship with Richard Curtis, and I’ve always had the greatest respect for Mike Newell who taught me things I use to this day.”
Grant previously lent his wry wit to retrospective remarks about the film in 2017. “They wanted to give me the worst haircut in the world — and it backfired on them all because it became a haircut that was copied,” Grant said (via Deadline). “[Co-star] Rowan [Atkinson] was funny, the rest of it was just awful and I had to be helped sobbing back onto the set… Then they had a screening in Santa Monica and suddenly everyone loved it. It was a total surprise to everyone.”
Grant collaborated with screenwriter Curtis again with “Notting Hill,” “Love Actually,” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”
Grant’s former co-stars Emma Thompson and Drew Barrymore have also weighed in on Grant’s on-set antics and sense of humor. Barrymore called Grant a “charming movie star and what you really get is grumpy Hugh and then you fall in love with grumpy Hugh.” She added that Grant, whom she acted alongside in rom-com “Music and Lyrics,” an “absolutely funny” person who “doesn’t mean one negative thing” with his humor.
“He is a hilarious, good human being,” Barrymore summed up.
Case in point? Grant reunited with his “Four Weddings” co-star Andie MacDowell to present at the Oscars March 12 in one of the most charming moments of the night.
