The Sunday Times (South Africa) - Sunday 28th September, 2003

Story of an African film star

By Jeanne Van Der Merwe.

Famous for portraying grumpy oddballs, Richard E Grant this week seemed a touch uncomfortable with his latest role, that of a conman, in a film being shot in the Karoo.

Grant plays Bonaparte Blenkins, who tries to cheat a widow out of her money in Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm and beats up the farm manager's young son.

Speaking on the set, on a farm near Matjiesfontein, Grant said: "I play a scallywag, a philanderer, a compulsive liar, a trickster who tries to fleece the farmer's wife of her fortune . I've never played a conman before and I've never done an Irish accent before."

Nevertheless, he accepted the role of Blenkins a week after reading the script. "It is a classic story of a closed, homogeneous community into which my character comes and disrupts their lives before being catapulted out."

Grant plays opposite two first-time child actors, both from Cape Town, Anneke Weidemann and Luke Gallant.

"You've got to be very patient when working with children but, being a parent, I enjoy it enormously," he said. "They are not jaded or cynical and they have a fresh attitude."

The British-based actor has a 13-year-old daughter, Olivia.

Grant is a firm favourite with the crew in Matjiesfontein. South African producer Bonnie Rodini described him as a "true professional. He keeps us all giggling. He has a very dry sense of humour. And he's very good with the children."

On set, the tall Grant is hard to miss, dressed in a period black suit with too-short pants.

He doesn't act like a major film star. This week, after finishing a shoot, Grant fetched his own mineral water and apples before sitting down on a dusty grain sack.

Karin van der Laag (best known for her role as Maggie in the soapie Isidingo) said: "He is super-intelligent and very unpredictable. He acts like a clown and he's usually pulling faces as he walks."

Grant often rides to and from the set on a pink bicycle, or jogs the short distance along a dirt road on Zoutekloof, the farmstead where the filming takes place, to the camp where the cast rest in caravans during shooting.

Born Richard Grant Esterhuysen, the actor grew up in Swaziland, the son of a Swazi education minister.

"Even 22 years after I've left, I still love going back to Swaziland as a visitor," he said this week.

Grant studied drama at the University of Cape Town before forming an alternative multiracial theatre company called the Theatre Troupe.

"I worked with people like Fiona Ramsay, Ian Roberts, Grant Stopford. They were a great group of people and I remember them with great fondness."

Yet he never regrets his move overseas and into film.

"I vastly prefer film. You get paid much better, and there exists a record of your work, for better or for worse. And you get to travel, which is a fantastic privilege.

"The film industry is also far less precious than the theatre; theatre can be very self-important. And performing the same play for six months is braindamaging."

Grant said he visited South Africa regularly, as his mother, Leonie, still lives in Johannesburg.

His next project is a film that is set and shot in Swaziland, which he wrote himself. It deals with the "last gasp of the British Empire" and Swaziland's independence.