Hugh Grant

Hugh Grant (birthname: Hugh John Mungo Grant) is often given the mantle of “The King of Rom-Com” for his numerous hit romantic comedies, most of them written by Richard Curtis, but his proper theatrical acting debut was actually in the fine Merchant-Ivory screen version of E.M. Forster’s 1971 novel, Maurice (1987), with James Wilby, Rupert Graves, Denholm Elliott, Simon Callow, Billie Whitelaw, and Ben Kingsley.

Grant has been underrated in his film career for having starred in work by many major filmmakers including, and continuing with directors Michael Radford (White Mischief (1987)), Ken Russell (The Lair of the White Worm (1988)), French filmmaker Nicolas Klotz (The Bengali Night (1988)), Roman Polanski (Bitter Moon (1992)), James Ivory (The Remains of the Day (1993)), Ang Lee (the Jane Austen adaptation Sense and Sensibility (1995)), Woody Allen (Small Time Crooks (2000)), The Wachowskis (Cloud Atlas (2012)), and fellow Brit Stephen Frears (Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)), for which Grant received his first BAFTA Best Supporting Actor nomination.

Grant portrayed composer Frederic Chopin (whom he had previously played in a short film) alongside Judy Davis’s vibrant George Sand in the James Lapine-directed drama-comedy, Impromptu (1991), with Mandy Patinkin, Bernadette Peters, Julian Sands, and Emma Thompson. Grant was featured in another period movie, the 17^th-century-set Restoration (1995), starring Robert Downey Jr., Sam Neill, David Thewlis, Meg Ryan, and Ian McKellan under Michael Hoffman’s direction, and released by Miramax Films and winning two Oscars for Art Direction and Costume Design.

Hugh Grant had his breakthrough as an international star—and possibly typecast as a suave/sarcastic romcom leading man—in a series of movies written or co-written by Richard Curtis, most prominently the megahit ($245.7 million grossing) comedy, Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), co-starring Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow and Rowan Atkinson under Mike Newell’s direction, and for which Grant won best actor awards from the Golden Globes and BAFTAs; Grant and Curtis became one of the few identifiable actor-writer combos with pair with the Roger Michell-directed rom com hit ($364 million grossing), Notting Hill (1999), starring Julia Roberts; director-writer Curtis’ $250-million-grossing rom com, Love Actually (2003), with Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy and Atkinson; and Grant as Daniel Cleaver in Universal Pictures’ series of Bridget Jones movies co-written by Richard Curtis (and based on Helen Fielding’s 1999 novel), starting with the $280-million-grossing hit comedy, Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), co-starring Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth; Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), reuniting the co-starring cast and nearly matching the original’s gross with a $265 million return; and then Grant returned for another round as Daniel with Zellweger’s Bridget in the second movie in the series not co-written by Curtis, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025), with Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones and Isla Fisher under Michael Morris’ direction.

Grant has been loyal not only to writer Curtis but to other filmmakers, including Paul and Chris Weitz (About a Boy (2002) and American Dreamz (2006)); director Marc Lawrence in the quartet of light comedies–Two Weeks Notice (2002), Music and Lyrics (2007), Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009) and The Rewrite (2014); director Paul King in the live-action/animated family entertainments, Paddington 2 (2017)—for which Grant earned his first BAFTA Best Supporting Actor nomination—and also Wonka (2023), starring Timothée Chalamet, Keegan-Michael Key, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, and Olivia Colman; and then Grant displayed his swarthy side with the flashy director Guy Ritchie, including The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), The Gentlemen (2019) and Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023).

Hugh Grant had his first Hollywood starring role under Chris Columbus’s direction in the hit rom-com, Nine Months (1995), co-starring Julianne Moore, with Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, Jeff Goldblum, and Robin Williams and earning a strong $138 million for 20^th Century Fox, but then quickly turned around and showed Hollywood his dramatic chops in the contemporary thriller opposite Gene Hackman in director Michael Apted’s movie for Columbia Pictures/Sony Releasing, Extreme Measures (1996), with Sarah Jessica Parker and David Morse.

Grant departed from his old rom guise to play in both fantasy—the commercially disappointing Hasbro/Paramount Pictures epic, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023), with Chris Pine and Michelle Rodriguez—and in his first horror movie, directors/writers Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ Heretic (2024), with Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, premiering at the Toronto Film Festival and released wide by A24.