Roles in which Hugh Grant stepped out of his role as a modest English charmer (6 photos)

The filmography of the popular British actor Hugh Grant includes about 70 projects, and many of them exploit his role as a charming and slightly clumsy Englishman, for which the actor is loved all over the world.





This type was perfect for romantic comedies and melodramas, of which Hugh was the star in the 1990s and 2000s. And although Grant sometimes went beyond this, playing characters less pleasant than usual, most viewers perceived him as a hostage to one image.

However, Hugh Grant, being a truly talented actor, increasingly began to choose the roles of complex, ambiguous characters, demonstrating his talent and expanding his acting range. He easily went beyond the image of a shy and sweet bachelor with disheveled hair, in love with some beautiful lady. And here are several projects in which the “English charmer” appeared in atypical roles.

"2020, you're finished!" (2020)



In the Netflix comedy special “2020, You're Done!” the reserved and calm traditional images of Hugh Grant, familiar to the general public, are replaced by the arrogant and self-confident fictional historian Tennyson Fosse. He does not speak in the actor’s usual quiet, timid voice, but speaks in an overly confident tone, without doubting the completeness of his knowledge. The image of an all-knowing elderly pundit is completed with gray hair, thick-rimmed glasses and a tweed suit.

Hugh plays his role brilliantly, making the audience believe that he is, in fact, a historian who knows exactly what he is talking about.

"Gentlemen" (2019)





In Guy Ritchie's crime-comedy The Gentlemen, Hugh Grant forgot his usual charm and turned into a gangster, replacing his aristocratic London speech with a nasal Cockney dialect. He had a beard, his usually disheveled hair was combed back, and the round-framed glasses that the actor often wore on camera (for example, in the films “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Notting Hill”) were replaced by square glasses with colored lenses.

For the role, Hugh changed not only his appearance and speech, but also portrayed the complete opposite of his previous typical images. In Grant's early rom-coms, much of his charm was based on the somewhat timid nature of the characters he played. But in “The Gentlemen,” the actor showed a confident character with cheeky manners. He is the ideal gangster, happy to manipulate others in the underworld and accustomed to getting his way.

"A Very English Scandal" (2018)



Hugh Grant has portrayed a politician on screen before when he was the king of rom-coms. In Love Actually, he portrayed the fictional Prime Minister of Great Britain, presenting this image with the humor, charm and warmth characteristic of his roles at that time.

The actor creates a completely different image in the mini-series A Very English Scandal, based on a true story, where he played the head of the Liberal Party in the British Parliament, Jeremy Thorpe. He is a man of impeccable appearance and reputation, courteous in manners, and determined to succeed. When his brilliant career is threatened, he is willing to do anything to hide the truth about himself from the public.

Hugh's role in A Very English Scandal is very different from the sympathetic political figure he created in Love Actually. The audience adored the British prime minister, but they felt a strong dislike for Jeremy Thorpe, played by Grant - insidious, skillfully manipulating people and overly confident in himself. In this role, even the actor’s famous shy and charming smile became smug, cunning and unpleasant.

"The Adventures of Paddington 2" (2017)



It seems that in The Adventures of Paddington 2, Hugh Grant played a real villain for the first time, and probably no one expected this. Hugh played the role of the famous but out-of-print actor Phoenix Buchanan, who, due to lack of work, was forced to advertise canned dog food. He is cunning, cunning, narcissistic and self-obsessed, and uses his talent for disguise to hunt for treasures hidden throughout London.

Phoenix's appearance, dressed in a plaid tweed suit, tie and fedora, epitomizes the stereotypical old-time villain. But Hugh, clearly reveling in the role, makes his character more than just a flat villain foil to Paddington. Grant portrays Buchanan with obvious self-irony, easily laughing at himself in a way that movie stars rarely do on the big screen.