Hugh Grant - Bridget Jones Diary 2

GRANT'S RETURN TO FAMILIAR TERRITORY

Hugh Grant/Bridget Jones, Edge of Reason Interview by Paul Fischer in LosAngeles.

Hugh Grant clearly would rather be anywhere else than a large Beverly Hillshotel room in front of prying media. Affable enough, and even good humouredat times, Grant responds with an often quick-witted brevity to questionsabout the creepy arseholes he plays with such effortless glee. "It's sweetof you to say that," he says smilingly when I suggest he has a knack ofplaying arseholes so well, as he does yet again in the latest chapter ofBridget Jones. "Now, I quite like it, because for years I sat in theseinterviews and everyone said, 'you're always Mister Nice Guy, so why don'tyou ever play someone nasty?' So in fact it's been a relief for the real meto come out more on camera," Grant says in his typical self-deprecating way."I don't have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly.

In Bridget Jones, Edge of Reason, Hugh returns to his guise as thebed-hopping Daniel Cleaver, playing him, yet again, with obvious relish, asthe character heads to TV as the host of a travel show. Grant admits thatdoing the sequel to the original hit comedy, took a lot of convincing. "I'malways quite difficult, but I was really impossible on this one, and therewas a lot of coming and going about the script and my part. To begin with, Iwas not convinced that Daniel Cleaver could ever go into television, amedium he despises, but I got my head around that and did a lot of work onjust sort of trying to keep the cleverness of Daniel. I always thought oneof the mitigating factors for him in the first film, was that he wasn't justan arsehole, but actually quite a clever arsehole. I wanted to try andmaintain that, so in things like his presentations to the camera in doingthe smooth guide, I just tried to make them relatively clever." Askedwhether a character like Cleaver can change, Grant says emphatically not. "Ithink the short answer is that he can't. Funnily enough, I think that if hehas changed, he'd change for the worse, not the better."

Not one to appear in a sequel, Grant says that some sequels are worthy, butthey remain in the minority. "I don't think they're automatically to bedespised. I've seen sequels that are - The Godfather, he throws outnervously, racking his brains for another example."

Like Grant's fictional alter ego in the Bridget Jones films, the actor hassteadfastly refused to marry, and while the British tabloids seem determinedto see him tie the knot sooner than later, Grant says that he has otherbattles with Britain's tabloids, other than his marriage plans. "Ah, I don'tfeel THAT pressure. I mean, I feel other pressure from the British tabloids,but I don't feel that particular pressure," he insists, snickering at themention of the British media.

Over the years, Hugh Grant has continued to make noises about giving upacting, as he insists on saying how the difficult the profession has become.Even during the course of this interview, Grant refers to film acting as"just a miserable experience . . . it's so long, boring and so difficult toget right so that what you need above all is incredible willpower andstrength of mind." Asked whether that means Hugh is finally ready to give upthe screen, the actor hedges his bets as much as possible. "Well, I haven'tdone very much for about three years. I think I've just done that smallishpart in Love Actually and the smallish part in this film, so I'm sort ofsemi-retired." Not even a return to the stage holds huge interest. "It'strue that the stage is fun, but I can never justify it completely in my headbecause although I think it's really fun for the performers, my experienceas an audience member is 19 times out of 20 I think it's purgatory to sitwatching a play.. I think people keep going more, out of a sense of duty,like churchgoing, than anything else," remarks Grant. But should we see thelast of Grant on screen, he says that perhaps he might give screenwriting ashot. "I'm sure I've said to you a billion times that I keep thinking I'mabout to write a brilliant script," which of course he has not, he addsquickly. "I've done bugger all, all year and feel ashamed of myself."

So perhaps we have seen the last of Hugh Grant? Only if Richard Curtis comesa calling. "Yeah, old friends and things and this one - that seems fine. ButI'm not in a hurry to go and sit in big development meetings and make greatbig commercial films. I do have a touch of apathy about that."

BRIDGET JONES: EDGE OF REASON, OPENS IN NOVEMBER.