‘I’m still star-struck,’ reckons Richard E Grant, UCT Drama graduate and now on the Hollywood A-list. Recently in Cape Town, he told Karen Rutter how his background could never allow him to become blase*

Despite the many finely-nuanced performances that Richard E Grant can claim credit for, it’s his lanky urching about the countryside in Withnail and I that is the image that has lingered longest for most of us.

The sleeper hit which can rightfully claim cult status was the launchpad for a career that has been piloted by Altman, Scorcese and Coppola, and has slipped in alongside Kidman, Willis and Scacchi. And it’s nice to know that Grant, despite his elevation to the A-ranks of Hollywood, feels the same fondness for the film that forged his future.

“If I had to make a list of the movies I most enjoyed making, Withnail would definitely be at the top. Apart from thoroughly enjoying the process, I made lifelong friends with the director and actors,” he explains.

It’s this kind of loyalty to the stuff that shaped his success that makes Grant stand out as a Seriously Nice Guy. The very reason he was recently in South Africa for a whirlwind visit was due to a 20-year-old friendship with theatre director Fred Abrahamse, who founded the new Gauloises Warehouse theatre in Cape Town this month. Abrahamse invited Grant over to officially open the venue, and Grant jumped at the chance.

“Fred and I, together with Sean Taylor, Fiona Ramsay, Neil McCarthy and Ian Roberts, all graduated from UCT Drama School in the same year – the class of ’79 – and some of us went on to form the Troupe Theatre Company. We put on quite a few productions (including Agamemnon and Metamorphosis) and worked very well together. I’ve kept up contact with most of the people involved, so I was very pleased when Fred told me he was opening up a new theatre,” says Grant.

He speaks of Fred with an unaffected fondness, and expresses great admiration for the director’s commitment to his gala production, Shopping and Fucking. There’s none of the pretentiousness one might expect from a star who mingles in a stratosphere sprinkled with the brightest lights in showbiz. Quite the opposite, in fact. Grant seems healthily grounded, quite happy to sit in the sun outside a city restaurant and shoot the breeze as bergies shuffle past. In a shapeless sweater and undesigner dark glasses, he projects a stylishly disheveled look that blends in perfectly with the streetlife around him.

It would seem his lack of affectation can be attributed to the same source that makes him list Withnail – and not the arty Portrait of a Lady or the big-budget-buster Hudson Hawk – as his fave film, and that honours bonds from way back. By his own admission, Grant reckons that because of his “humble” background he will never become blase about his life – and that understanding his past is an ongoing process which keeps him constantly inspired.

“It still amazes me that I’ve not only succeeded in my dream of becoming an actor and met everybody I hoped I might one day meet, but have stayed this long. I just hope it carries on,” he is quoted as saying in an interview. He smiles that yup, he continues to feel the same way.

“I’m still star-struck; I’m thrilled to say that hasn’t changed,” he beams. “I think it has a lot to do with coming from nowhere and going somewhere. Where I grew up all there was in the line of entertainment was a drive-in cinema – I’m very aware of the leap from there to here. Ultimately, I think I’m too curious and enthusiastic to take any of it for granted.”

Born Richard Grant Esterhuysen in Swaziland some 40-odd years back, Grant describes his childhood as typically colonial; his South African-born father was the Minister of Education and the family lived in relative comfort in Mbabane. Grant went to the Waterford School before moving down to study at the University of Cape Town. After graduation and the Troupe Company, Grant went to London where he battled for five years before starting to pick up stage work.

Withnail came at just the right time, and things have soared since. Movie titles include The Player, Jack and Sarah, Dracula and How to Get Ahead in Advertising, and there have also been two best-selling books.

With Nails is a collection of memoirs written while on set, while By Design, his latest, is a novel which has obvious autobiographical parallels. It’s about a young boy and his best friend who grow up in a mythical small town in Southern Africa, and dream of making it big in Hollywood. Of course, eventually they do – as (respectively) interior decorator and masseur to the stars. The book is one big send-up of Tinseltown, from big budget disaster movies to the people who make and star in them, through to the glossy couples whose public lives hide a multitude of personal sins. Part of the fun is guessing which fictional character is based on what real star – but Grant isn’t giving away any clues.

“These things have a way of bouncing back,” he says discreetly.

It’s a book which Grant based on various aspects of his own life (“Someone once said, ‘Only write what you know’ so I did,” he explains), and will be followed by a screenplay (which he is hoping to direct) which looks at Swaziland at the end of British colonial rule.

“It’s very personal – again – and fairly political, too. It comes back to what kind of childhood or background one has, and whether one fights or embraces it. One can spend one’s whole life coming to terms – either good or bad – with one’s past.

“Actually, in many ways, my youth in Swaziland wasn’t so different to my life in LA now – there are common points of confluence between the incestuous nature of Los Angeles and the pecking order in a small colonial town. The salaries, names and places may differ, but the common denominators are all there. If I do get to direct this one, it will be a first for me,” Grant adds.

He seems keen to make the transition from in front of to behind the camera – even if it’s just for one film – and one gets the impression of a rangy energy that needs stimulation and movement in order to stay interested. “I found it difficult to sit in isolation for six months, from nine to seven every day, writing By Design. Picador, the commissioning publishers, dangled a large amount of cash in front of me which is why I did it – I couldn’t imagine slogging away like that and then still having to try and sell the thing to someone,” he grimaces.

“It was similar to when I did The Importance of Being Earnest some five years ago with Maggie Smith – the same thing on stage every night for eight months. I far prefer variation,” he says.

Which he certainly has, at the moment. He’s just finished shooting The Little Vampire, a big budget children’s romp, in Germany and Scotland, and will soon be filming the second season of the adventure series The Scarlet Pimpernel for BBC1. Then there’s Hildegard, an Australian production (his first) which he starts after that. Not forgetting the Swaziland screenplay, which is an ongoing project.

Would he ever consider doing something in South Africa, considering his continued links with the theatrical community? He pauses. “I think if it were a special production, perhaps a reunion of the class of ’79, I’d like to direct.” Which sounds absolutely appropriate for an actor with such honest allegiance to his roots ….