Elle Magazine – July, 1987

Tell them I’ll wear whatever they want,’ was Richard E Grant’s parting shot as he left the Elle offices, leaving behind him the distinct impression that the idea of doing a fashion shoot was one big hoot.

Off screen, he’s not a million miles away from the shambling, shabby character he plays opposite Paul McGann in Bruce Robinson’s Withnail And I. Set in 1969 – what one of the characters in the film describes as ‘the end of the greatest decade known to man’ – it is the largely autobiographical account of Robinson’s own experiences as a struggling young actor.

For its entire length, Grant ambles about in a huge, dilapidated coat and crumpled shirts, and the similarities with the actor’s natural sartorial habits aren’t difficult to spot. Fashion talk bemuses him: ‘You mean you discuss this sort of thing all day long?’ he asks in a fake American accent, a pose he falls into whenever he probes something that strikes him as faintly ludicrous.

It’s a genial jibe from an otherwise extraordinarily accommodating young actor. Well, not that young. At 30, he’s ‘too old, thank God’ to join the Brit pack, although his latest performance as the heart wrenchingly funny and eccentric Withnail may all but lodge him firmly in its midst.

If there was such a thing as apprenticeship in the acting profession, then Grant has served his in full. Born in Swaziland, where his father was Minister of Education, he had a comfortable, traditional background which, despite his unorthodox career, still clings to him like a well-worn coat, and shows itself in his voice, his easy manner, his disarming old-fashioned romanticism and his refusal to take things too seriously. Hardly the rebel – his first and last cigarette had him keeling over in front of his schoolmates – he didn’t take up acting properly until he studied drama at Cape Town University.

Various romantic parts followed, even if the rings under his eyes smacked more of too much hard living than lovelorn yearnings. After forming his own theatre company he came to Britain, landed parts in TV and theatre, was nominated for the 1984 Plays and Players Most Promising Newcomer award for his role in the BBC’s Honest, Decent and True and, between times, mastered the art of resting. Last time round he got married – something he never thought he’d do, ‘but it’s absolutely wonderful’ – to a brilliant dialogue coach’. And he got fit.

‘I swam everyday, went to Dreas Reyneke in Notting Hill (the coach who turned Christopher Lambert into Tarzan) and for the first time in 29 years, emerged beefy and healthy. Then at the auditions for Withnail, they told me I was going to be playing a debauched, drugged waster, so could I kindly lose a stone and a half, please.’

He pauses, his mouth twisting into a grin for a moment before the large blue eyes take on a myopic look. He can’t speak highly enough of his new film, its writer and director Bruce Robinson and fellow actor Paul McGann, but then he probably never cared quite so deeply about anything he’s done before. It not only gave him his second ‘once-in-a-career’ break (the first was the Promising Newcomer nomination), it also proved to be one of his most enjoyable times professionally.

‘The cast struck up a tremendous rapport. The crew said it was one of the happiest sets they’d ever worked on, and Bruce Robinson was a dream to work with.’

One senses that Stephen Polikoff, with whom Grant has just made Hidden City along side Charles Dance, was less easy to work for. True to form, Grant plays an eccentric – ‘what I like doing best’ – in his role as Brewster, an underground video-maker.

With two films under his belt, Grant is still unsure of his future. A few days before the fashion shoot we met at a press showing of Withnail. ‘This is going to be agony,’ he muttered. ‘Seeing the rushes was bad enough – the whole time I kept thinking God, is that me?’

He needn’t have worried. Everyone laughed in the right places and the New York previews have been well reviewed. ‘I could be hyped to death over this film,’ Grant acknowledges, ‘but it wouldn’t mean a thing if I couldn’t come up with the goods next time. There’s no such thing as a star in British cinema these days. We’re only as good as our last film and there are few enough decent ones around.’

For the moment he’s back doing something else he’s become very good at – resting, though he has cushioned the financial blow by making an advert.

‘Oh don’t write that,’ he says, slipping into American again. ‘It’s not what serious actors are supposed to do…is it?’