Hugh Grant Knows He’s Playing A Monster In ‘A Very English Scandal’

Hugh Grant has a bit of a reputation. Well, technically, he has several. Grant has been known as a perfectly charming romantic hero, a devilishly seductive cad, and a bit of a Hollywood bad boy. In his new project, A Very English Scandal, he shows off what he really is: one of the best actors of his generation.

A Very English Scandal tells the very real story of the Thorpe Affair. It was a case that shocked Great Britain in the 1970s: a prominent Liberal MP tried to arrange the murder of his former gay lover. Grant plays the politician in question, Jeremy Thorpe, and Ben Whishaw is Norman Scott, Thorpe’s former flame. While Thorpe may have been found not guilty by the court, the media circus surrounding the more lascivious details of the case ruined his reputation forever.

“It was too good to be true,” Grant told a round table of reporters including Decider earlier this week. “It was like Monty Python: a member of the establishment, ex-Oxford and Eton, very well connected, with his lover saying, ‘And then I had to bite the pillow.’ And the vaseline… There were thousands of jokes! ‘Join the Liberal Party and widen your circle.’ It was all that kind of stuff.”

“So that’s how he was really regarded, I’m afraid,” Grant said.

Grant plays Thorpe as a tortured beast, defined by his self-loathing. “In the end, he was a sort of monster of narcissism, privilege, and violence. How do you make that character interesting and sympathetic?” Grant wondered aloud. “The hardest part is the violence. He evidently did take out a hit on another human being and getting my head round that was a struggle.”

A slightly easier thing to tackle? Love scenes with co-star Ben Whishaw. “I was a bit lost,” Grant said. “I remember I pushed him on the bed. I thought, ‘Well, I could go on kissing him, but they haven’t shouted cut yet. I better do something else. I’ll lick his nipples!’”

This isn’t the first time Grant has played a gay character. His very first leading role in a film was in the 1987 Merchant-Ivory drama Maurice, where he played a young man in love with another man. And he played a gay character in the late ’80s TV movie, “Our Son.”

Grant insisted that he has never had an issue tackling gay roles. “I never thought there’d be any problems with it or stigma. I think it probably surprised my parents a bit more.” He deadpanned, “I remember when I did Maurice, they were a little surprised to go to the news agent and find their son on the cover of Zipper.”

Hugh Grant is as witty as you would hope he would be. When a reporter asked him about reuniting with Paddington 2 co-star Ben Whishaw on this project (Whishaw provides the voice of the titular bear), Grant got devilishly sarcastic. “That’s why I took it! I thought that Paddington had gotten the upper hand at the end of that film,” he said. In fact, the only time Grant paused before answering a question was when asked if he identified with Thorpe’s struggles dealing with a personal scandal in public life. Grant paused — and it was a huge pause.

“Well…” he finally said, “That only happened really after the scandal started to emerge, and for him…in his opinion, exposure was going to ruin him. Did I identify with that? No, all my skeletons got out there very quickly.”

Jokes and chatter of scandal aside, Hugh Grant throws down one of the best performances of his career as Jeremy Thorpe. He not only brings the infamous public figure to life, but manages to express the fear and loathing driving Thorpe to be such a prominent member of society. Grant said he was determined not to do a straight impression and that he specifically wanted to work with make-up artist Daniel Phillips on nailing Thorpe’s look without going too far.

Grant also did his research. “I did talk to a lot of Thorpe’s friends and colleagues, and what amazing was the disparity. I talked to people who said, ‘Jeremy would never have hurt a fly,'” Grant said. “And I also spoke to people who said, ‘Oh, he’s a monster.'”

“In a way, that was the answer,” Grant reflected. “He was capable of giving all those impressions.”

Grant said that he wrote “J.J.” in the margins of his scripts — it was a sort of code for unlocking “John Jeremy,” which was Thorpe’s full given name. “John Jeremy was this incredibly spoiled, much over-loved son of scary Ursula with her monocle who had incredible sense of entitlement. And I’ve met these guys. They still exist to this day in politics. They come from good families and they’re simply not accustomed to anyone saying no to them.”

To Grant, Thorpe’s story wasn’t just about one man’s fall from grace, but the British empire’s. “It was the last flicker of British Empire, grandeur, establishment. Right in those 18 years, it’s just ending.” Grant explained, “[Thorpe] was a creature of his time. I think this is key. He’s a 1950s man, and it’s watching 1950s man die as modern man rises that underlies the whole story.”

Grant’s final moments in the series are bittersweet. He at first thinks he has claimed victory over his demons, but then realizes that his reputation is ruined and his career is over. For Thorpe, reputation was everything — so much so that he tried to murder someone to keep his reputation intact. The moment that Thorpe realizes that he’s actually lost might be Grant’s strongest scene in a mini-series full of tour de force acting. It’s not so much that Thorpe’s mask drops, but the fire in his eyes dies.

“A lot had to go into that moment because it is a bit of a realization. Okay, he’s got off, but it’s a kind of O.J. Simpson or Rebekah Brooks ‘not guilty.’ He’s not going to get back into the establishment,” Grant said. “It’s also a sort of moment of tragedy. I’ve lost everything and I never even had love.”

A Very English Scandal is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Where to Stream A Very English Scandal