Evening Telegraph (Kettering) – Friday 7th October, 2005

Stephen Blease finds the veteran actor loves the thrill of stage life.

Despite being an actor for 23 years, Richard E Grant still suffers from terrible stage fright.

Yet he is looking forward to appearing live on stage for the next four months instead of the less frightening experience of acting in front of the cameras. The 48-year-old actor is appearing in the comedy Otherwise Engaged at Milton Keynes Theatre from Monday to Saturday.

Richard has spent the best part of the last five years on an autobiographical film Wah Wah, which is due to come out in the new year, and sees being on stage again as a welcome break. Writing and directing the movie, he had to spend much of the time away from his home in London and in his native Swaziland, where the story is based.

So he is glad to be back in Britain and returning to his origins as a stage actor – even if the experience of appearing live in front of theatre audiences still terrifies him.

“I still get terrible stage fright and never goes away,” he said; “But directing a film is very intense, you have responsibility for lots of people and it is incredibly exhausting and time consuming.”

“With this play I can be at home in London and return to my roots – and once it starts you are only working for two hours a day. And the nerves at least make you feel alive.”

Otherwise Engaged is regarded as playwright Simon Gray’s best work.

It is the story of an evening in the life of Simon Hench, a witty, urbane and rather selfish publisher of refined tastes, who likes to keep the distractions of family and friends at a graceful distance.

However as he settles down for the evening with his new recording of Wagner’s Parsifal, he is besieged by a succession of unwelcome visitors – and he begins to lose his usual cool demeanor.

The play has already spent a week each in Bath and in Oxford and after its run in Milton Keynes it will move to Worthing for a week, before settling in London’s West End for three months. Richard said it was well received in its opening week in bath.

“It’s a great play and a really fantastic role,” he said. “It’s very funny and moving at the same time, and touches on topics such as male relationships, infidelity, families and age. So everything is in there.”

Richard was born in Mbabane in Swaziland in May, 1957, and was named Richard Grant Esterhuysen.

His father Hendrik was minister for education in the Swaziland government and his younger brother Stuart is now an accountant in South Africa.

But Richard had always been drawn to an acting career – though he admits he doesn’t know where the desire came from.

“I wanted to be an actor right from way back,” he said. “I had a model theatre made out of shoeboxes, and then glove puppets and when I was older I was in amateur plays and plays at school and university.”

“But there is no theatre background in my family and where it came from I’ve no idea.”
He studied drama at Cape Town University – where he founded his own multi-racial theatre troupe – but there was no professional acting scene in Swaziland so to pursue the career he wanted he moved to Britain in 1982.

Like many actors, Richard worked in repertory theatre for some time and was lucky to get fairly steady work. In 1984 he was nominated as the best newcomer of the year by Plays & Players magazine and he recalls only ever being unemployed in 1985.

“I was out of work for nine months that year,” he remembered. “I hope I never have to go through that again.”

It was later that year, however, that he made his television debut in Les Blair’s satire Honest, Decent, Legal and True and two years later came the film role he is perhaps best remembered for – that of the title character in Withnail and I.

The movie about two would-be and never-to-be actors in London became a cult classic and Richard was acclaimed for managing to make his mostly unpleasant, arrogant character somehow likeable and even moving at the same time.

He says he is pleased the film has proved so popular and does not mind being associated with the role so closely.

Yet Richard has appeared in a total of 34 films, as varied as Gosford Park, Pret A Porter, Bram Stroker’s Dracula, Bright Young Things, Jack and Sarah, Twelfth Night even Spice World, Bob Spiers’ movie about the Spice Girls, in which he plays the band’s manager.

His most recent appearances on UK television have been in advertisements for Argos. But he also appeared in ITV’s Celebrity Shark Bait, in which he and three other celebrities – Ruby Wax, Amy Nuttall and Colin Jackson – were safely encased in metal diving cages and got to see great white sharks close up.

Once a film is over he ignores it and moves on.

“I never look back and never watch the stuff,” he said.

New projects for Richard include more writing and directing.

He published some of his diaries under the title With Nails to critical acclaim, as well as a novel By Design. He now plans to turn the novel into a screenplay and direct the movie as well, which he said was a very different experience to acting.

“When you are directing you have control over what you are doing, but as an actor you have no control. Acting requires you to have tunnel vision, focusing only on your own role and doing what you’re told.”

“But when you direct you have 360 degrees vision. It’s much more challenging and stimulating.”