New Musical Express Magazine – 31st May, 1997

He was the epitome of rock’n’roll cool as debauched degenerate Withnail, so what the bloomin’ heck is Richard E Grant doing risking it all by releasing a cheesy Bard-quoting house choon? John Rohinson met the “ageing Spice Boy”. Whole lotta luvvie: Derek Ridgers

The 34th most hated man in Britain sweeps in from a sunlit Notting Hill Gate, and decrees this day to be a good one. Indeed, it is rather more than that.

“It’s a F—-NG MARVELLOUS day,” announces Richard E Grant, his arms aloft, breaking the tape on behalf of the Labour Party. “A F—ING GREAT DAY FOR LABOUR!”

He prowls to a nearby sofa this post-election morning, and then does what more actors should do, just to prove they really are what they claim to be. He looks at the flower arrangement on the table, takes a huge draught of its scent, and looks delighted with the world. He has Arrived.

Quite an entrance. But he is not done yet. “How old are you?” he enquires, fixing the NME with the qualified suspicion of a man at approximately Act III, Scene I in life’s five-act drama. “FIVE?” He receives a more realistic answer. “F—! Thatcher was quite literally bombing the SHIT out of the Falklands when I was your age!”

Catching himself, Richard E Grant remembers why he’s here. “I’m sorry. We’re meant to be revelating and all that.” And it is a revelation indeed.

Cast aside for a moment the recollections of Withnail & I; of memorable drunks with soles flapping off their shoes; of Hudson Hawk and Pret A Porter, and descend with us to the dance floor, where on the turntable a curious record is playing. It’s a bit housey. A bit Pet Shop Boys. A bit stupid, even. And what it is is Richard E Grant reading extracts from Hamlet and Macbeth over a disco beat. Called ‘To Be Or Not To Be’ and recorded with an otherwise anonymous collective called Orpheus, it is not overly serious tune, recorded for not altogether serious reasons, for a purpose that is not immediately easy to pin down.

“I suppose I should bullshit you that I’m a great singer,” he says, “but I approached this with a large, leviathan TONGUE in my left cheek. I can’t be serious about it. But if this could constitute me as some aging Spice Boy, then great.”

A light flashes across Richard E Grant’s tombstone features, and with it, an idea. “YEAH!” he grins enthusiastically. “TOMBSTONE SPICE!”

Richard E Grant often speaks in capital letters, declares most interviews to be largely a matter of, “ ‘Which director would you most like to work with?’ – that old bollocks”, and lives in a world where names – the big, big names: Scorsese, Coppola, Willis, Madonna – are never merely dropped but politely introduced and made to feel at home. He has written a book of film diaries – With Nails, which charts his progress from his penurious arrival in Britain from Swaziland in 1982 to his investiture in the Hollywood bloodbath of egotism and dollars – and finds that this is a good thing to mention every 20 minutes or so. He’s met everyone from Liam Gallagher to Barbra Streisand, and is keen for you to know that his birthday’s coming up. And he wouldn’t mind being on Top of the Pops either, should his record take him there.

“AHHAHAHAHA! Oh, it would be FANTASTIC! I’d have to wear an inky cloak and some knobbly-kneed tights. I’d look like Mrs Overall from Acorn Antiques! Postmodern….ironic…I don’t know whether it’ll shift any units or whatever they’re called: but what I do know is that if I’d done what Rupert Everett did in that Farts for Hire movie (Er, he’s talking about Hearts on Fire, where Rupert Everett played a rock star), grown my hair and gone on Wogan, and assumed the mantle of wannabe pop icon, it would be pretty chronic and desperate.”

Chronic and desperate Richard E Grant has been, but it was on purpose, and he was called Withnail. The ultimate portrayal of degenerate high-liver forced to live low-rent, Grant’s role in Bruce Robinson’s Withnail & I defined an archetype for dissolute young men in leather jackets. Articulate, good-looking and bent on the pursuit of good times to fill the void between other more meaningful or gainful endeavours, Withnail was rock’n’roll, though played by a man who neither smokes, drinks, nor take drugs.

“The quality of the writing and directing in it is such that people still think it’s about them,” he says. “It surprises me, because it was written about men who are now in their 50s, who are still lurking about, only with less hair. But my generation thought the film was about us. Then I met people at a party at the weekend who had seen it, when they were 14, now they’re 18, and they think it’s about them.”

Do you ever resent it? “No, because the fans have made my book a bestseller, thank God. But I suppose the bad side of it is….well, I was coming back on holiday, and looking at the magazines on the plane, and there I was in GQ: 34th Most Hated Man in Britain.”

“I thought, ‘F—ing hell, I’ve just come back from my hols, Labour’s bound to get in, and here I am – 34th most hated man in Britain.’ It made my wife laugh a lot: they’ve identified me as this heinous creature.”

“The people who endorse the spirit of that film – they’re the kind of people I like. I have the same sort of sensibility as them, though I don’t smoke or drink.” Richard smirks. “I consider it a minor detail.”

Hard to picture it of a man in slacks, but Richard E Grant is a great dancer. The model raver, he dances – as he did not so long ago in the company of Ewan McGregor, after the completion of a new film, Serpent’s Kiss – both ‘unassisted’ and with passion.

“Very often I’ve been invited to parties because I don’t need a tankful or noseful to get me going, I will start before anyone else, and I’ll be the last to stop stomping about,” he confesses. “Often I’ve been assumed to be completely out of my mind.”

Richard ponders his next dancing venture. “It’ll be a good one on Sunday too. My birthday.”

Forty-one?

Richard E Grant explodes. “FORTY! BASTARD!”

Though his thing is dancing, rock’n’roll has periodically come to call for Richard E Grant. Ewan McGregor is one his new pals, so when Oasis played in Cork, near to where they were filming, attendance was imperative. But work finished at 8pm. The concert started at 9pm. How to get there in time? Simply….become The Rolling Stones.

“We hired a helicopter,” he groans, slightly embarrassed. “We got a police escort to the concert, right into the….I don’t know what you call it, the area right in front of the band, then went to the party afterwards, drove back and went to work at six the next morning. I was wasted beyond Withinsnape.”

And Liam Gallagher was pleasant? “He was very genial and accommodating. Didn’t flash the twos and didn’t show his arse. Haven’t seen him since.”

Yet this, evidently, is as close as many actors come to rock’n’roll debauchery. Gone are the days of career boozing and hell-raising, though the legends of Harris, O’Toole and Burton remain touchstones for the Loaded classes, their modus operandi has been diluted at the hands of omniscient studio executives brandishing contracts and mineral water. Ewan McGregor, says Richard, you are unlikely to see “washing the Morris Minor on a Sunday morning”, but Los Angeles, as the actors’ Mecca, operates an early-to-bed, early-to-rise routine.

“I anticipated it would be like the Andy Warhol diaries; which are basically on account of ten years of sniff-and-f— around,” he explains. “But I’ve never found Los Angeles like that. Certainly with the booze. I’ve been sitting in a restaurant with an English actor and some Americans, and he had two glasses of wine with his dinner. When he went to the loo, they asked me, in all seriousness, “Does he have a drink problem?”

“Same with River Phoenix: when he died there was no great sympathy, it was just, ‘Why has he been so dumb?’ I think that gives you an idea of the sea-change in LA: 20 years ago, Janis Joplin was deified when she died. Fast forward 20 years and it’s like: ‘Bad career move’, and he becomes just another freak-spot on the Hollywood Death Tour.”

Richard E Grant leans back on his sofa and ponders whether acting and rock’n’roll will ever meet again. But before he can expound, his press officer concludes this slightly odd interlude in his career with some very distressing news. Our audience is at and end. We’ve just run out of time.

To listen to the track just click here.

To see some promo pics, click here.