Hugh Grant has shared his idea of perfect happiness in Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire – and made a cheeky dig at Colin Firth in the process.
When asked what his idea of perfect happiness is, Grant replied, “Drinking a pint of London Pride while munching Twiglets and reading about Colin Firth having a critical and box office catastrophe.”
Grant and Firth have worked together in movies including Love Actually and Bridget Jones’ Diary, and over the years have made light-hearted jabs at one another. In 2022, for example, Grant sponsored a chair at the BAFTAs with a plaque that read, “In loving memory of Colin Firth. Not dead yet, but looks it. Sponsored by Hugh Grant.”
And back at the Love Actually premiere in 2003, Grant interrupted a Firth interview with a deliberate yawn. He would later admit, however (via Deadline), “I’m never very kind about Colin, but if truth be told, he’s just about the only actor in the world I genuinely like and admire.”
Hugh Grant (L), Renee Zellweger (C) and Colin Firth pose at the photocall to promote ‘Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason’ at Hotel Adlon on November 11, 2004 in Berlin, Germany. CREDIT: Carsten Koall/Getty Images
Firth told the Evening Standard in 2022, “I get on really well with him, I like the guy, despite his outrageous rudeness about me.
“It’s a running joke, and we do it to each other. I’m always hearing how he’s announced that I’m too old to be in the cinema anymore.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Grant revealed that he can’t use scissors, that he doesn’t like being told to access restaurant menus through QR codes, and that his greatest fear is cat bowls with old cat food “dried on like cement”.
When asked what he considers to be the most overrated virtue, he replied, “Honesty. I’m sometimes asked by people who’ve just seen one of my films, ‘Do you mind if I’m honest?’ I do.”
He also shared how he’d like to die, joking, “My wife has kindly agreed to sneak up behind me and shoot me in the back of the head.”
Grant’s most recent film, Heretic, was released on November 1 in the UK and November 8 in the US, and the horror thriller also follows Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East.
In a four-star review, NME said: “East and Thatcher are convincing as the Mormons who made a wrong turn and Grant is a loquacious delight in a role that could so easily have been a wad of demonic clichés. Lovers of Bridget Jones’s Diary always knew he was a cad but this is something else entirely. He’s never less than devilishly plausible and meticulous with every glance, grin and furrowed brow.”
English (US) · 