Happy Sad Confused - Hugh Grant

Episode Date: February 16, 2015

Hugh Grant is a wonderfully witty and incredible actor with an amazing screen presence. Hugh joins Josh to talk about his recent time in Britain as a full time political campaigner, his new film The Rewrite, how you would approach creating a romantic comedy today, having fun while filming Cloud Atlas, and his role in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey guys, it is time for another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz, and welcome back to my podcast. I assume you've been here before. If not, welcome aboard. Hope you enjoy the trip. This week's guest, it's kind of funny. This was not planned this way, but if you listen to last week's show, it was the delightful Colin Firth, starring in Kingsman. Again, highly recommended, hugely entertaining. And of course, well known for starring in Love Actually and Bridget Jones, one of the coolest British actors of our time. Well, this week's show, purely by coincidence, is his co-star in Love Actually and Bridget Jones, Mr. Hugh Grant. Yeah, Hugh Grant. That's crazy, right? This is a cool one. Hugh Grant is obviously an amazing screen presence, somebody that has an amazing hold on the romantic comedy genre. There's no way. anybody more identified, I think, in the last 20 years with great romantic comedies, like Love Actually, like Four Weddings and a Funeral. He, but he doesn't actually work. A, he doesn't work much nowadays, which is interesting. We allude to this in the interview. If you guys don't know it, the last few years, Hugh has been very much involved in kind

of the anti-hacking campaign over in England. He is no friend to Rupert Murdoch. Let's put it that way. You guys can Google all that. and find out what he's been up to. We don't really spend a ton of time on the political side of things. There's too much cool stuff about his career

I wanted to cover here. But suffice it to say, because of this political campaign the last few years for him, he really hasn't been doing much acting. He appeared in Cloud Atlas, which was amazing. I love Cloud Atlas.

We talk about that. And he's now in a new film called The Rewrite, which is back in kind of the romantic comedy genre. It's out right now. It's on VOD. It reteams him with Mark Lawrence,

who has directed him a bunch of his most notable romantic comedies. And also features Mercer Tomey and Bella Heathcote and a whole great assortment of cast members. Alison Janney's in it, J.K. Simmons. So check that out if you like all the stuff that Hugh Grant delivers in comedies because it's all there for you. This was also cool just because Hugh has a reputation as being sort of like a really difficult as too strong a word. But he doesn't, he's not necessarily like media friendly. And I mean that in a not necessarily negative way.

He's, I feel like I keep saying this about guests that we have on the show. And the ones I tend to really like are ones that are truly authentic and really don't, you know, BS people. And that's what Hugh Grant is. He really doesn't suffer fools. And that's, I think, what made this conversation really fun to kind of go back and forth with him a little bit and get some of that amazing wit of Hugh Grant. This is a fun one. I got a chance to go down most of my favorite films of his in his career and just bounce around and get a sort of sense of where he's at today. So I think without any further ado, I'm going to toss it over to this conversation with Mr. Hugh Grant.

As always, guys, hit me up on Twitter, Joshua Horowitz, and check out all the Amazing Wolfpop.com podcasts at Wolfpop.com. That kind of makes sense, right? And now on with the show, Mr. Hugh Grant. Thanks for submitting to this on what has to be a joyous day, a junket day. This is a string of horse and hound jokes thrown in your face. Yes, yes, and I got a good fake laugh every time. And the baton has been passed last week's guest on the podcast was Mr. Colin Firth, who sends his regards. Oh, yes, okay.

So we're starting there. Congratulations on the film. I very much enjoyed the rewrite. um thank you a fun um reteaming of someone clearly you trust yes in a profound way because you're notoriously picky you know this is it is it is that justified uh yes but all on top of my pickiness i now also have another job in that i'm sort of much to my surprise i turned out i turned out to be a full-time uh political campaigner in britain and uh so i don't even have my eye on show business at all.

Do you feel like you have a less of a sense of also where the industry is at? Because, I mean, so much has changed and it seems like so iterative in the last couple of years. And obviously, we just have to look at what's playing at the multiplex. It's, it is night and day from what it was five years ago or ten years ago. Yes. I have no idea what's going on. I'm here to educate you.

I'll just reenact all the Marvel movies for you and tell you what's been going on with the Avengers. Yes, do that. Please. But is that a factor in any way, or is it mostly, do you, is it this kind of crazy side political pursuit that's kind of just organically happened? Yeah, no, it's the latter. It's just, I ended up in this campaign, and it's very obsessive and very time intensive, and it's that. It's not that I looked at the film industry and thought, I don't want to be part of that anyway. I'm done with that, sort of affair. although I will say I suppose one just starts to sound middle age at this point but

I always had a soft spot for the sort of romance glamour of cinema and of things shot on film and projected light through celluloid in a big cinema with lots of people there in shat you're confusing listeners now they don't understand what you're talking

about right you know the Cann Film Festival and a night out and all that. And I so I do have a soft spot for that. Now that everything's sort of shot on digital and you know, people watch it

on their little laptop, I don't know that it has quite the same glamour. It is a shame. And it's, I mean, look, I mean, last time a lot of people saw you was under a lot of different stages of makeup and something like Cloud Atlas, and those are some filmmakers that need the big screen,

that fill the big screen. And I love those filmmakers. I mean, genius. I'm one of those. I mean, I don't know if you can tell us from like a mile away, but that was my favorite film that year. Oh, really? I found so moving and wonderful and bizarre

and all of every adjective you could think of us. And it's really cinema. It is. Yeah. Some people, I just have cinematic genes and they've, you know, I once read a book about Polanski and his film school at Lodge in Poland where he went

and how they were never allowed even to use 16mm film they always had to use 35mmy but they had to think big in cinematic and I just

personally have a great taste for that did you get along with Polanski I think that was one the first films I saw you in was Bitter Moon, right?

Bitter Moon, yeah because he's notorious in terms of just his manner he's not necessarily a coddler of actors from what I gather I got off very lightly but I saw him

with some of the other actors saying, oh for fuck say, oh, do it like this. Do it like this. And you pick up the cup like this, and then you say the left. You know, and he'd give line readings and all the things you're not supposed to do in the director. Do you, how do you, how do you interact with the director if they give you a line reading?

Are you open to that or is that a no-go for you? Yeah. That sounds like a no-go. Well, it is. It is curiously destructive. That's a polite way of putting it. But there are other, I mean, you know, there's just a few, about five golden rules for a director. with working with actors

and that's one of them. Another one which many fewer directors know which is very important. In fact, the whole crew should know is never saying to someone, oh, I love it the way you say that line. I love it the way you said that line in rehearsal or in the first take, do that again.

Or worse, you know, that little thing you did with your eyebrow or that little snort you made because there's no, there's no chance you'll ever be able to do it again. Oh, I see. The moment comes up and you've switched from instinctive right brain into cognitive left brain, and it just won't happen. Right.

It's like when you were a kid and your mother said, do that imitation of the prime minister in front of her friends. Mom, not now. You can't do it, you know, not under pressure. It's interesting because what strikes me very much about your method, if we want to call it that, or your persona or what you bring to a character, is a very naturalistic approach. There's a very little falseness about what you bring to the screen. And I feel like that extends to my sense of you in reading about you and following you through the years is you have a pretty good BS meter and that you're not so into what goes hand in hand with a lot of Hollywood, it seems, in filmmaking, which is platitudes and empty.

I find it hard to say, oh, my God, it was such an honor to be part of this experience, and I really learned from it. And it's like I feel, you know, so privileged and excited. I can't do all that crap. Right. Has that affected things in any negative way? Or is that in a way almost maybe it helped you all? I don't know. I probably, I'm hated.

I buy lots of people, especially actors. I don't know. I don't know. For Mark, who I believe this is your fourth collaboration with Mark Lawrence, the writer director of this one, is he somebody? somebody that is it simply just you respond to the writing you like the writing you like the way he conducts a set or is it yeah I like the writing I you know I the dialogue makes me laugh and then there's charm which is becoming an

increasingly rare commodity and I think the fact that he loves people so much particularly sort of unlikely people like students or professors at a downtrodden university there's a sort of I find that charming and I find him extremely charming as an individual

because he's such a sort of eccentric you know he's almost entirely nocturnal and so is his whole family including his you know when I first knew him one of his kids was three and lived by night as well what goes on in the night of Mark Lawrence well they're all extraordinarily talented

and gifted they're all making music and films and stuff like that and his apartment really is something to behold they've never used their kitchen they takeout for every single meal for the last 20 years I might get along with him I do not mean my wife do not cook oh well there you have literally

but do you at least order from the same takeout because the whole there are three or four that we rotate between we like to mix it would you have the same as your wife because all the Lawrence's have something different. Wait, wait, wait. Yes, when they sit down for a meal, they're all easy, one's using Chinese, one's eating...

That's remarkable. They've taken a step further than I. Yeah, yeah. Their eccentricity out does mine, which is impressive. He's also someone that is a true collaborator. It's not, I mean... Yes, exactly. I mean, you're well-known as someone that's not necessarily...

You're not an actor for hire that's just going to show up on set, read the lines, and just go about your business. You want to be a part of the process, fair to say? I do quite like doing that, more because it's comforting. less on the brain just sort of like go on the autopilot I don't know

I don't know I feel I'm very sensitive to being patronized or belittled and if people think it's just an actor just turn up

and say your lines love I'm very uncomfortable I like people who at least pretend to value my opinion on the material and I certainly love improvising

and trying new stuff, you know, because it's strange how often that works and is the take you use. Invariably, do you find that the take that, I guess you just said it, and the last thing you said it, it's invariably you do find that that it's not necessarily the one

that you've kept to the letter of the law on that makes the final cut. Well, not always. I mean, sometimes, you know, what I like to do is do three or four takes as per the script and then let's mess around a bit. And sometimes the messing around is just deeply embarrassing and unfunny.

and you don't use it, but it does work quite a lot of the time because the camera, movie cameras, are strangely susceptible and in love with spontaneity. Anything spontaneous, you find you want in the film. And stuff that's just being repeated is just a little bit dead up. Yeah. And I've noticed over the years American actors are really good at messing around with the text and improvising

and doing different things in each take. And British actors are much more formal and theatrical. I think it's important to be devout with the text. You're traitor to your own people. You might enjoy, I don't know, how well-versed you are in the works of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, because I've been on some of their sets. I mean, literally Anchorman, too, the latest film they did,

there is an actual alternate cut that you can watch on Netflix of a different joke at every precise moment of the film. It's the same story. different jokes and it's fascinating yeah fascinating and it's actually honestly both are extremely funny and both work in a way yes yes have you ever have you ever talked to mackay or have you i mean i mean that in that no but i know what you mean and they're you know those really clever comedians that's how they make fun is that who's that woman who does bridesmaids and all that oh the christen wigg and yeah yeah they're genuces and paul rod

and uh and they're the exceptions to the rule i think of you know, just looking at the landscape of comedy today, which is not, I mean, there's some great stuff out there, but like the quote-unquote, and this has pejoratives sadly attached to it, but the romantic comedy genre feels like it's not a strongest point. Yeah, I agree to say. I agree with it. Is that something just that cyclical, you think, that's just bound to come around again, or have we been swallowed up by superheroes forever? Well, I don't, listen, I'm no fan of romantic comedies. I don't know how I ended up doing so many. I can only apologize.

But just from an objective and interesting point of view, I wonder if romance doesn't exist in the way that it wants. Yeah, well, I'm not so sure. For a start, how would you really do a romantic comedy now? Because people don't talk to each other. They text or they Facebook each other. Not quite a cinematic to... It's not a cinematic.

Yeah. That's not how people respond. It's not, people don't meet, they meet on Tinder or whatever, you know. Even something which actually worked, I think, on its own level, like you've got mail, which did it well with that feel. I was watching the other day. It feels like it's from Cecil B. DeMille made. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

It's absurd. Do you, so it's something like this. I mean, are you less critical of your own work than you once were? Have you always been kind of like when you look at yourself in something like the rewrite? Can you appreciate it on its own level? The film or me? I guess you. Well, I think I'm good in one scene.

So let me know so I can look out for it, because I think there are a few in there that are pretty good. No, actually, I agree. I think there's about two or three scenes where I think that's not bad. The rest I have issues. Really? Yeah. So are you in the edit room?

Do you make a visit and say, he's very kind and sends me early edits and I sent him notes and then he's very cleverer at ignoring them while making me think that I wanted. You mentioned your foray into politics. Has that affected the career you think? Do you think like Rupert Murlock is not sending you scripts

because of what you clearly feel and say and do? And does that bother you? No, it doesn't bother me at all if that's the case. There was a Fox thing that was floated by my agent a couple of years ago. And to say, well, I mean, I'm sure that the film would be great, but it's going to have to be another studio. Really? Yeah.

I mean, apart from anything else, I'd be accused of gross hypocrisy. Right. Yeah. Right. So is this, I've heard you talk about this recently, this kind of portion of your life, there is an end point for you in terms of the political side of things. This is not necessarily your life's work now. Correct.

I bloody hope there's an end point. I don't want to, I mean, it's already taking many more years than I hope to have a time. Are you a big consumer of, of? film? Were you always growing up? No, I wasn't really. And I've had phases when I'm very much into it and then phases when I'm less into it. Funny enough, it was

Bittermoon and Polanski that really first got me interested in cinema, as opposed to just sort of movies. And the art of cinema and the beauty of it and the romance. And those are still, if I go to the cinema, that's really what I want

to be watching. I want to be watching Kislovsky or that type of thing more than I want to be watching a Hollywood sequel, Blondbastom. Does it feel like, what is your own relationship

to your career in that as you experience, I would think day-to-day moment-to-moment, the kind of films that people mention to you, scream at you, I don't know how they interact with you on a moment-to-moment basis, it sounds like they're not necessarily the kinds of films that you kind of put on a pedestal.

The ones that I get offered you in. Not offered, that people reference, that people talk to you about. They want to talk to you, I'm sure, about Bridget Jones, et cetera. Oh, that, yeah. And it's probably not necessarily... Well, no, there's a great art to making a good film in any genre, and that includes romantic comedies and popular romantic comedies, too. You know, getting them right, very, very, very, very difficult.

And, okay, it might not be Kislovsky, but there's... there's other issues which are as difficult and as precise and requiring just as much talent you know really good funny writing and managing to preserve funny writing

through production because everything in production is really trying to kill Gandhi you know it's the wrong actor the wrong camera angle the wrong music the wrong prop is an amazing and very very difficult art

and it's why I really admire people whose films end up as funny as, you know, Jod Appetals or somewhere. It's bloody difficult. All right, guys, time for a quick break from Happy Saganfews to tell you about our friends over at Squarespace. Building a website can be tough. And even if you do know your way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well, is a time-consuming affair. Whether it's for a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else in this day and age, you probably need one anyway.

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you're going to get a free three-day shipping on your final frame choice. Warby Parker makes your experience completely risk-free and free shipping all around. Get to it, guys. Warby Parker, they're where it's at. It's also interesting to look at the films you succeeded in, the career you've carved out, especially in the comedic realm, where people will talk a lot about typecasting. In a way, I feel like you took a very bold move,

and you in many of your films, embraced kind of a persona. Not to say you're playing the same role, but you're playing riffs off of something that work. I mean, is that not fair to say? I'm judging by body language, but maybe it's not. Well, I think maybe in the early years after four weddings and a funeral, I was a bit guilty thinking, oh, I see, well, the world loves me when I'm this

stuttery person, so I'll do a bit more of that. And I hate myself for having done that. But after that, you know, if you look at the Richard Jones films or about a boy, they seem to me to be quite different characters to sort of diffident heroes of Notting Hill

or four weddings and a funeral so I'm always slightly surprised and a little bit hurt when people say oh it's just the same old hue because I think they're different oh no I've upset you no no not a little more than anyone else I'm an equal footing with the rest of the planet this is out of wetfield

but I'm always curious that I talked to Colin about this too but was Bond ever something way back in the day that was seriously talked about for you? No. Never one conversation with the broccoli

or anything like that. No. If it had come, would you have said, yeah, let's talk about it? I mean, if it had come,

it would have been much earlier after four weddings and I think uh, the Bond was a very different beast then. It wasn't the really sexy, excellent films

that have been the last three or four. It was more, you know, it wasn't as great. Yeah, They figured it out in recent years. They really figured it out. Yeah.

Do you know Daniel at all? Have you? I don't know him at all. Yeah. Who do you consider your contemporaries that you kind of came of age with in the business? Colin? Yeah, Colin. And I love him.

I mean, he's my... We love making films together and we sit there and bitch. Can he hold a candle to Hugh Grant's bitching? Oh, yes. He just hides it much better than you. Yes, there's plenty of poison there, dear. Oh, my God. He's really, like...

Well, there may be less now, because he's so successful. But on the Bridgett films, we could have a very good toxicity fest. Well, why the... It seems like, and I feel badly even bringing it up, because, again, I know it follows you every single day. But your time in Bridget is over, it sounds like, I know there were fortations with doing a third one that you're just not interested in.

Is that just about... Well, that's not true. I mean, there was a script a few years ago. a couple of years ago, maybe less. And it was actually it's a very funny premise and it's got a very good set up. But I really

tried to help them make the whole thing work. You know, I kept demanding new writers. I spent many, many days, weeks trying to figure out how to make this work. And I just felt in the end it wasn't working and they wanted to go in production.

And I said, well, I'm afraid I can't. say yes. So they may make it, but they'll just rewrite it slightly and put in a different character for Daniel Pugel. Right. And I know they had trouble nailing down a director. I know Paul Feig was there for a second, et cetera. He was.

So I do want to mention Cloud Atlas a little bit more, because as I said, I'm obsessed with that one. I know many are. Was that, were you a Wachowski fan prior to that one? Was that an easy yes? I mean, truly visionary. Yeah, that proper cinema you know filmmakers and

and I didn't understand a word of The Matrix but I loved them all those films and so I thought I thought it was a joke when they wanted me to be in this day and I went to meet them and I said are you joking and they said no man we love you and then I said all right but just give me one more part

because I just I saw one of the part I fancied which was the the old man The brother of... Like, Brodmont or... Of... Jim Broadment?

Yeah, of German. And I said, I think I can play that. And then they said, sure, you play that. And they said, yeah. And I'm very sad that it never really found enough audience. Although there are countries where, apparently, it was huge. Really? Czechoslovakia.

Who knew? They're very wise over there. Well, and they're very filmy. Are they? Very filmy. The whole of Middle Europe there is. You know, there's a great tradition of big cinema. Is there any solace to be taken to know that, like, it is a film that, while not financially successful, has people that will talk about it to anyone that will listen to their daughter?

No, I think that's a huge consolation. And after all, it's failure at the box office, although sad was not, it's not a disaster for me. I was just a tiny cog in a big wheel. But I'm sad for them. I really loved the Majeris. It's also a rare film in that we get to. hear some unique different kind of voices from you. I know you've resisted over the years,

not necessarily doing an American accent. Is that something that you still hold fast to? Well, it's not really. I did do an American accent in a TV film in 1990. And I do an American accent in Cloud Atlas. You're right. I'd forgotten that I'd do as the preacher near the beginning. Is it just a level that takes you out of that spontaneity?

Is that the... Well, yes. I felt I couldn't Yeah, spontaneity is exactly it Because it's not just an accent Ie, phonetics, sounds It's a whole vocabulary Both of words and of

Physical movement Right And I always think a sign of being really in a road is Even after the You've run out of the scripted dialogue You kind of know what you'd say or do next Right. Not having lived here that much, I don't know actually what the next thing an American character would say.

I would get the vernacular wrong. I think had I ever lived here, I might have been able to do that, but I never did. So growing up, I mean, talking about like your kind of preference and inclination towards spontaneity and kind of the more kind of like American ethic of actors in terms of just trying shit out and just going forward. Were those the actors that you gravitated towards growing up too? Were you idolizing? more American actors rather than the British actors? No, I didn't idolize any acts at all growing up. Let's face it, I wasn't a big film fan or anything like that. And I never really, I never had any of the slightest ambition to be an actor or in show business. It was only after I found myself in show business that I started to get interested.

Was, by the time four weddings came around, like, where were you at, were you at a point where this is just never going to happen in the way that it's supposed to happen for big time actors? Because my ambition was never to be a big star or anything like that. I was just filling in time, really, before I went and did something else. I mean, I was doing writing and producing radio commercials for a time and was very happy doing that. And then just happened to get cast in a film. It's a long, boring story.

but I never it's never been the thing I desperately want to do and you've said before I know that like you had no idea of making that film that it would turn out in fact you were petrified and thought it was going to turn out not so well to say the least right has that has that judgment changed over the years

in terms of not about that film but in terms of on a set do you have any better sense of it turning out close to what you imagine it to be or No, I'm still a very bad judge of that. Can anybody be? Like, is that just an empirical impossibility or by the nature of the beast? Or is that uniquely something you don't have?

I don't think anyone really knows. It's such a strange thing. It's so strange. Everything is unexpected. Roles where I thought, I never really cracked that. I didn't really, I felt comfortable. You get rave reviews for. And roles where you think, I was pretty darn marvelous.

you get slightly critical reviews it's very strange one of those rare intersections though where it feels like I think I know you take pride in it and I feel like commercially and critically was about a boy where we all came to the consensus Hugh's awesome in this and this is a great movie

well thank you I mean yeah I agree that that was that turned out well two other filmmakers I want to ask you about because I'm as fascinated by the greats behind the camera as in front Engli, who is another one who, like, from reputation is difficult, maybe it's too strong a word, but is it, what, taskmaster, knows what he wants?

You tell me, how would you describe his methodology? Well, I don't know what he's like now, but I think Sense and Sensibility was one of his very first Western films. Right. He'd only made Taiwanese films before that. Yeah. And the tradition in Taiwan is that the director is God. and literally someone follows them around

with a chair hovering behind them for when they want to sit down, they don't even look around. And so he was very surprised to come on a set of sense and sensibility whereas a lot of English love is who like to chip in and say, I don't think I want to say that, you love, or can we change the text of it here

or, you know, or want to change the blocking, the movement of the actors. I think he was very shocked. I'm going back to Taiwan. This is not how it's supposed to be. But he's a lovely man. really properly lovely man and, you know, a genius filmmaker. Did you have great affection for, I'm legally bound to love and worship everything Woody Allen does

as a lifelong New Yorker growing up and, Lord of the last name, Horowitz, I'm obligated? Or did you have affection for Woody prior to working with him? Yes, I've always been completely obsessed with his films. Right? Yes. I mean, I sort of was falling in love with film at the time of his absolute heyday. Yeah. with sort of Hannah and her sisters and all that

and I bullets over Broadway Danny Rose yeah well what do you count I like to ask people this like what their favorite pure comedy is versus drama or dromity what would you put at the top

I feel like it's a good gauge of a human being well you see actually I still laugh at you know love and death that's mine that's my comedy yeah yeah And then I could go quite pretentious with my other one,

because although I revere, you know, many, many, many of his films, I, um, uh, do I really think this? You're in junket mode. You don't actually have to think of what, you actually have to believe what you say. No, but I'm interesting. You're going to go black and white. You're going to go September or something like that.

You're going to go really hardcore. drama. Well, hang on, what's the really Fellini one? Oh, well, there's, wait, is that the one with Madonna, black and white? It's like East German kind of... Yeah, and he's

at a sort of... Shadows and fog? Is that what you're thinking, or no? Oh, Stardust memories. Star-Dust memory. Yes. That's pretty good. Pretty darned. But otherwise, it's going to be, yeah, Broadway Danny Rose or... Yeah.

I'm a crime's and misdemeanor's man myself. That also has all... Yes, yes, yes. So was he Did he satisfy? I mean, you probably knew going in the war about what it's like to work with him. You're not going to necessarily find a lifelong buddy

to go to mixed games with. Was it still rewarding? And just as a film fan, as just someone... Yes, I mean, it was a massive treat. But it is, I mean, everyone will say the same. It is quite an unsettling experience because you don't get the whole script.

You just get your part. you have to torture the makeup of women to try and find out what their whole story is because they've got the whole script and absolutely no rehearsal and almost no feedback at all while you're shooting it's like an actor's worst nightmare in some respects well it makes you very insecure you think you're going to be replaced

because he does love to replace actors if it's not working and so it doesn't make you very insecure I talked to I talked to Michael Keaton recently who notoriously was let go halfway through Purpose of Cairo. He blames himself, actually. He said he came up to Woody and was getting no validation or anything

and said, I don't know if I'm doing a good job here and literally the next day, Woody was made the change. Fucking hell. That should teach you something. Yeah, terrified. Terrify. Are you a consumer now a film? I know you're busy with politics, being a dad, obviously.

Do you find that... Well, I haven't been, but I actually got better recently. I've been to see most of the films that are nominated. for Oscars this year. What's top of your list? Well, boyhood, I thought, was unbelievable genius. The film I regret didn't get any nominations, even for BAFTA's,

was Mr. Turner. Mike Lee from him, I think that's amazing. Amazing. This is incredible acting. Do you think you could work, I mean, he's notorious also for just his very unique approach, months of rehearsal, right? And then getting to a finished script.

But I guess once he's actually on set, It's not improvised. It's actually to the letter of the script. I think so. I don't really know. I think so. Is that intrigued you in any way? I think so.

Particularly Mr. Turner was written in this period language, which is very well rendered. But every scene is so tight in terms of the performances and the drama of them. It makes other period pieces look so flabby by comparison. Yeah. And great to see someone like Timothy Spall get a chance to really get the... Genius. genius and they're all so alive it's amazing

you talked about Colin as a contemporary was there was there one in that group if there was a group to create one out of nothingness like to imagine one that was considered that's the guy with the stuff that's like our Daniel Day Lewis that's the one that has like the most

well it's Daniel Day Lewis I stumbled into him yeah yeah was it yes I mean it's not I'm not saying I wanted to be like you know I was like it's completely different kettle of fish he's a character actor and a genius one but yeah

I mean he was the one winning Oscar after Oscar after Oscar He he is a different thing He's a different thing He's quite a unique You know in terms of the history of cinema It is quite rare That

To have someone who Played leading roles Giving a massive character performance Where he was unrecognizable from picture to picture It's like Lon Cheney Like esk It's absurd in the way he can... Yes, and yet when he was more himself or, you know, it was less characterized.

Those were his less successful films. I put him in that category of, like, I remember, I'll never forget, like, Gary Oldman, who I was and still am a huge fan of, and seeing him on a wait-night talk show after a decade or two, watching him, and hearing him in his own voice and being staggered that, who is this human being? I know. I know. He's an unbelievable comedian. Unbelievable.

Insane. In our remaining moments, what are you driving the most joy from in your life today? Is it the side pursuits? Is it potential future projects? What are you... Well, I mean, I can't believe I'm going to say something as corny or platitudinous, but my children are the nicer thing in my life now.

I never thought I'd wind up with three kids, young kids, my early 50s. But, I mean, that's proper joy. And then, you know, the politics, although it's scary, it's really fulfilling. I feel quite butch and manly doing it. Making a difference. This is important. Well, yeah, who knew? Because I never really cared much about anything.

This is an unrecognizable Hugh Grant, loving children, changing the world. I know. What happened to me? This isn't what we all signed up for, Hugh. I'm very sorry. Are any of the kids at the age where they can view and enjoy film? Is frozen entered into your world yet? which frozen no it hasn't no they're still on pepper pig

that was pepper pig by the way I'm not familiar with pepper's work well I'm rather a fan pepper pig's a little pig and she goes to school her French teacher is madame gazelle who I have a bit of a crush on I mean she is a gazelle but I still fancy her wow well this could be the next project you grant his pepper pig and we'll cast some lovely young actresses yep

As in Gazelle. Congratulations on the rewrite. It's been a pleasure to spend. It was very nice. Thank you very much. That's the show, guys. I'm Josh Harrowitz. This has been happy, say I confused.

Hope you've enjoyed the show. Hit me up on Twitter. Joshua Harrowitz. Go over to Wolfpop.com. Check out all the amazing shows over there. And most importantly, check back in next week for another edition of Happy Sad. Confused. Pop Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!

Pop! Pop! Pop! The film critic for the L.A. Times. And I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the L.A. Times. And I'm Paul Shear. actor, writer, and director. You might know me from the League, Veep, or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude Too is overrated. It is.

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits fan favorites musts season and case you miss them we're talking parasite the home alone from grease to the dark night we've done deep dives on popcorn flicks we've talked about why independence day deserves a second look and we've talked about horror movies some that you've never even heard of like ganja and Hess so if you love movies like we do come along on our cinematic adventure listen to unspooled wherever you get your podcast and don't forget to hit the follow button Thank you.