'Heretic' star Hugh Grant talks his 'evil freaks' era and 'Bridget Jones' return

Hugh Grant might be in his villain era, but to hear him tell it, the British actor’s always had a wicked streak.

The 1994 romantic comedy “Four Weddings and a Funeral” put him on the map as a leading man, a far cry from the creepy educated dude who terrorizes a pair of Mormon youngsters in the new horror movie “Heretic” (in theaters Friday). Before “Weddings” was released, Grant took a role in Mike Newell’s next film, the period coming-of-age drama “An Awfully Big Adventure,” as a predatory director at a shabby English provincial theater.

“Did you ever see that film? No one has, so I don't blame you,” quips Grant, 64. “I’m horrible, I have yellow fingernails from chain-smoking, I am a stalking, cruel monster. And I remember thinking at the time, 'I'm much better at this than I was at that ‘Four Weddings’ film.'”

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His sinister, cardigan-clad Mr. Reed in “Heretic” follows in the footsteps of his other recent antagonists, including narcissistic thespian Phoenix Buchanan in “Paddington 2” and even the troublemaking Oompa-Loompa in “Wonka.” Reed invites Sisters Paxton (Chloe East) and Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) into his house with the promise of blueberry pie and religious conversation but ends up putting them through the philosophical and physical wringer.

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“We put in pictures of me as a young man with a dog and ‘Bless This Mess' (hanging) to try and soothe the girls. I played it, as much as I could, really quite nice,” Grant says. Then it gets much “weirder.”

But that’s what you get with Grant: “Hugh's superpower is he is such a detail-oriented human being,” says Scott Beck, who directed “Heretic” with Bryan Woods. He's "constantly challenging himself to evolve, especially the last 12 years that he's been onscreen and doing more character-actor roles.”

Grant talks about his “Heretic” inspiration, his foray into horror and a rom-com return with “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” (streaming on Peacock Feb. 14).

Question: What was it about Mr. Reed that you thought you could run with?

Answer: What I sniffed was a chance to make him the groovy professor who was kind of different and a bit crazy and iconoclastic and daring. I saw him teaching in some not-great university somewhere in the United States with his English accent and his glasses and his double denim, and getting a kind of following from particularly young women. I saw him maybe having some seminars in his own rooms and some of the girls came to those and really thought he was something of a messiah. And then I always thought one of them died and it was unclear exactly what had happened. The university authorities were concerned. They didn't fire Mr. Reed. They just asked him to move on. I knew these sort of teachers.

Would the leading man Hugh of years ago be happy with your current character-actor period?

I think he would. “Four Weddings” hit the big time (and) although I'm very glad I made all those romantic comedies afterwards – well, not all of them, but most of them, they're good films and people like them – I wish I'd kept the other strand going as well. There was one brief outing for that strand in “Restoration,” a film not enough people have seen, with Robert Downey Jr. I played this awful, vain, foppish character with huge beauty spots on my face. And that was the last outing, really, of “monster Hugh” till six years ago.

What changed at that point?

Well, it built up slowly. My whole romantic comedy career collapsed spectacularly in 2010, and then really there was nothing. Then, in little tiny droplets, people started saying, “Oh, come and do a little bit in this, and a little bit in that.” Very often those were the places where I was able to bring my enthusiasm for freaks, weirdos (and) damaged, evil people to the screen. “Cloud Atlas” was a bit of that. And definitely in “A Very English Scandal," that TV show where I'm the politician Jeremy Thorpe. And even in “Paddington 2,” although it's comedic, he is a monster.

Speaking of films people should see, what do you remember about your first horror movie, 1988’s “The Lair of the White Worm”?

The cast didn't know what to make of it, really. One or two nights before we started shooting, I'm afraid to say at the read-through we found it so funny that we couldn't stop laughing. Then we noticed that (director Ken Russell) was laughing, too. So I think he shot that film not really quite sure if his tongue was in his cheek or not. But anyway, the result is wonderfully weird. It's crazy stuff when (Amanda Donohoe) spits venom at the crucifix. Marvelous.

Was playing Daniel Cleaver again in a new “Bridget Jones” a nice palate cleanser after Mr. Reed?

I suppose so. I'm also starting to think, “Hang on, Hugh, you spent too many years doing romantic comedies one after another. Don't start to just do evil freaks one after another.” (Laughs) So you're right, at least it's a change from that. The challenge with bringing Daniel back ... well, one, he's dead, so that's always a challenge. 

There is that.

And the other was the nature of the Daniel Cleaver of the first two films, this boulevardier womanizer, I was very worried that in his 60s, we wouldn't think that's fun. We might just think that's sick. Ugh. So I spent a lot of time working with various people, including ("Bridget Jones" novelist) Helen Fielding, on a new backstory for him and what happened in the intervening years to give him some extra dimensions.