Who Weekly Magazine – 1997

In 1986, Richard E. Grant was an unemployed actor wracked with doubt about his chosen career and his decision to move from his Swaziland home to London to pursue it. A decade later, “Swazi Boy” still does a good line in self-doubt, but is making back-to-back films with major directors and has best-selling book on his hands – as a result of playing a desperate unemployed actor.

In was 1986’s Withnail and I that put Grant on the path to success – hence the title of his collected film diaries, With Nails. His playing of squalid, drunken, thwarted thespian Withnail (to Paul McGann’s unnamed ‘I’) led to working with Francis Ford Coppola in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Martin Scorcese in The Age of Innocence, and Robert Altman in The Player. Throughout it all, Grant, 39, kept a journal, as he has done since age 11.

In early 1994, when he flew to Paris to make his second film for Altman, the “ill-fated Pret-a-Porter,” Grant was commissioned by Britain’s The Observer to write a diary about it. The piece was so well received that he landed a book contract. Grant says the subsequent editing is for brevity, rather than self-censorship, though he opted not to name all names.

“My intention was not to write a slash-fest and write myself out of ever working again. There were people I might have been more vitriolic about, in stuff like Hudson Hawk, because I literally felt I’d gone mad making that terrible movie.”

Still, the passages on the six months he spent making 1991’s overblown Hawk with Bruce Willis do have plenty of waspish humour as he details the melodramas of co-star Sandra Bernhard, the peccadilloes of producer Joel Silver and a brush with prefame Sharon Stone in star mode. But Grant is unsparing of himself, too, and just about his vocational insecurities. He also writes about the 1986 loss of a daughter who lived for less that half-an-hour after being born prematurely. He first heeded an editor’s suggestion to remove this section, and discussed it at length with his wife, Joan, but “by not writing about it, it seems to me in someway dishonest and it’s also not honouring the fact that it happened. So I felt absolutely compelled to put it back in.”

He and Joan now have a 7-year old daughter, Olivia, and their home in London, though Grant is often away working (he is currently in Ireland filming Serpent’s Kiss with Greta Scacchi). But wherever he travels, he comes upon Withnail fans keen to share their appreciation. “It seems to me a bit like Dracula,” he says, “They will not let him die, which is fine by me.” He laughs. “If there were people out there coming up to me and saying ‘I loved you in Hudson Hawk’, that would have me seriously worried.”

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.

Melody Maker Magazine – 17th May, 1997

Richard E Grant, hero of the evergreen movie favourite “Withnail and I”, has recorded a single – and he finds it every bit as hilarious as his famous film role.

“I told them I couldn’t sing!” he laughed. “It just shows that anything goes, anything can happen if somebody thinks it’s daft enough to buy. I don’t expect anybody to take it any more seriously than I did.”

The single, “To Be Or Not To Be”, is released on May 26 by the UK branch of a Japanese label Avex. It finds Richard reciting the well-known soliloquy from “Hamlet” over a house track from Orpheus. Grant also sings on the choruses.

The idea was put to him six months ago when he was working on a voice-over. “Withnail and I” had just been re-released,” he said. “And my book (“With Nails”) had just come out. I don’t know whether there was any connection to that or if I just happened to be an actor who was around.”

Grant duly turned up for a stint in the studio. “They said, ‘Do it straight and then we can do stuff, muck about with it.’ Then they asked me to sing this chorus and I did it full-pelt, but they didn’t want that. They wanted it to be as melancholic as possible. And they made a dance track out of it.

“I had no idea that anything would ever come out of it. Here I am six months later and they confidently tell us it’s going to be in the Top Five. Unbelievable.” He laughed uproariously, as he did throughout the interview, which took place in the sitting room of a discreet hotel in Bayswater, west London. It was May 2, the morning of Labour’s election victory, which was to a great degree responsible for Grant’s high spirits.

Repeatedly, he pointed to the summer sunshine outdoors, which together with the Labour triumph made him feel euphoric, he said – like being back in a little bit of the Sixties.

“This all happened by accident,” he insisted, returning to the single. “It was not my intention at all to set myself up as a serious pop star. I’m 40 on Monday. I’m not trying to give Oasis sleepless nights about this.”

First the movies, then a book, now the record….What’s left? “The video diary!”

Asked about his reaction when he heard the finished version of the single, he said: “My eight-year-old daughter thought it was danceable…. I just laughed. I thought, ‘Oh my God, I’ll never get a job as a serious Shakespearean actor at the RSC having done this!”

As a film, stage and TV veteran, Richard E has still had no professional experience of “Hamlet” other than “What a piece of work is a man!”, the speech which forms the finale of “Withnail and I”.

Asked what Shakespeare might think of the single, he ventured, “He wrote lots of songs for his plays, and he wrote for a theatre that had to have a turnover and was a huge successes in his day, so who knows?”

“The fact that he has survived and continues to survive so relentlessly and with such protean variation shows that there’s no end to the possibilities of Shakespeare.”

Grant himself has mixed feelings about the bard: “I like the quote from ‘Romeo and Juliet’ – ‘Two hours’ traffic upon the stage.’ To see ‘Hamlet’ doe in two hours would suit me fine.

To see ‘Hamlet’ done in four and a half hours is arse-crunching. “As a philosopher and a man of ideas and understanding of human nature and psychology, he is unsurpassed, which is obviously why he has survived as long as he has.”

Is there any element of “bringing culture to the kids” about this single? “No, no, no,” roared Grant, horrified. “Oh God, no. That would have an air of sanctimony, of ‘Open University’ about it.”

So much for Shakespeare. What would have been Withnail’s reaction to being asked to record this single? “If he could stop laughing and stay sober, I think he’d think it was a jammy job. I don’t think he ever got a part in anything. He’d think it was fantastic.” He turned, gloriously, into Withnail: “Bring me the finest wines available to humanity – bring me them now!”

Grant is still good friends with “Withnail and I” co-stars Paul McGann and Ralph Brown. Presumably, he’s sent them copies of the single? “I hadn’t thought about that,” he admitted. “Do you think I should? Oh, all right. Helena Bonham Carter said, ‘Please can I have a copy?’ I said, ‘You don’t have to be polite and patronizing.’ She said, ‘No, I really like it.’ ‘We were listening to it and dancing around the make-up bus,’ during the filming of “Keep the Aspidistra Flying”.”

At the time of our meeting, Richard E was looking forward to filming the video – “a tongue-in-cheek, full gothic number” – and also, perhaps, to his first “Top of the Pops” appearance. “I’m sure they are waiting to see if it sells more than five copies,” he grinned. “But yes, it would be a thrill to appear on ‘Top of the Pops’. It would be fantastic. Yes! Especially at my age. I’m acutely aware of my age at the moment. I’m in terrible denial.”

“I’m having a fantastic party at my house in Twickenham on Sunday, a blow-out, I’ve invited people that are going to rave and make me laugh.” The soon-to-be-40 Richard E Grant, whose musical tastes run from Sixties soul to Fugees and who last year hired a helicopter with Ewan McGregor to see an “absolutely amazing” Oasis gig in Cork, was already preparing for his next trip to Ireland. He should be there by now, filming “St Ives” with Miranda Richardson, Anna Friel and Jean-Marc Barr, and awaiting the release of the single.

Asked if any more might be on the horizon, he said: “Let’s see how this one goes. If it goes all right, who know? But if it doesn’t, this thing will be ruthlessly ended as fast as it began.”

The single is the first recording for an album project of Shakespeare readings, featuring a number of actors and actresses. They are still unconfirmed, although Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes and Alan Rickman are said to be keen. Richard E Grant, meanwhile, is gearing up for another pop-related project: he appears in Spice Girls’ upcoming movie, as their manager. Full details of the film, provisionally titled “Spice Girls: The Movie”, were due to be announced on Sunday (May 11) at the Cannes Film Festival.

To listen to the track just click here.

To see some promo pics, click here.

By Richard E. Grant & Orpheus – May 1997

To see some promo pics, click here.

Sainsbury’s Magazine – March 1997

Lychees and lemons, papaya and pineapples – these are the way to Richard E Grant’s heart. But kippers you can definitely keep.

What food always reminds you of your childhood?

The stench of kippers for breakfast, which my father regularly scoffed down, is still with me. What I think of is a mouthful of bones and the conundrum of eating a fish that looks like it has been steamrollered and dyed Day-Glo orange. At the time I thought all fish tasted like that.

Do you cook, and if so, what do you like to cook?

I did once cook and opted for colour combination rather than flavour. The resulting plate of orange, red and bright green blobs proved inedible. My attempt at spaghetti Bolognese in university digs resulted in mince that was black on the outside and raw within and memorably relieved me forever from the cooking rota.

Do you have a favourite restaurant, or a favourite type of restaurant?

The River Café in Hammersmith. They cook food that looks simple but tastes sublime enough to kiss a credit card goodbye. My real weakness is the pudding list and their fruit tarts induce withdrawal symptoms till the next fix.

Is there anything you hate about restaurants?

Anything overpriced, undercooked, boiled, or remotely resembling that Eighties aberration, nouvelle cuisine. Bismarck silver helmets topped with gold pineapples, ceremoniously lifted to reveal a plateful of food by a conjuring waiter at a hotel in Penrith was pure embarrassment.

Is there anyone, real or fictitious, living or dead, you would like to have dinner with?

Steve Martin, as he is always funny and fussier about food than I am, which lets me off the hook. He is also rare in being an American who eats with his mouth closed, so you are spared the open washing machine three-dimensional effect.

Is there something you always keep in the fridge?

A year’s supply of lychees, tinned or fresh, whichever are available. It is the one fruit that tastes and reminds me of where I grew up in Africa, and their unique texture is as close to the feel of a tulip stem that I have discovered so far.

What was the best meal you ever had?

My wife is a fantastic cook and last night she made a dish involving strips of fresh tuna and mushrooms in half a papaya with lime juice that prompted a renewal of marriage vows.

What would be your nightmare meal and have you ever had to eat it?

When I was filming in Israel I was invited to shul (synagogue) where the menu consisted of eggs, liver and gelfilte fish. As I don’t eat meat, eggs, dairy or cured fish my panic matched that of Mr Bean when he ordered steak tartare and had to find places to hide it. Likewise a trip to the loo and a stash of paper went some way to clearing my plate every time my incredibly generous hosts ooh’d and aah’d at their infant. However, when they saw how much I had bolted down, this prompted gasps of ‘Oh, you must have some more’. Vommed the lot up on the way home.

Do you ever grow or catch your own food?

No patience for the former, or guts for the latter. Other than beans in a jar of damp cotton wool at junior school.

What food would you find hardest to give up?

Fruit, of every description. Fresh, liquidized, baked, stewed, dried or pulped. The perfume colour and taste of it is better than anything else I have eaten. I have never drunk milk, always substituting orange juice to have on cereal, but have since dropped the cereal and now I just liquidize more fruit.

Can you always get a table in a restaurant?

I often phone at the eleventh hour and always anticipate a “Who the hell do you think you are?’, which hasn’t happened yet but it might well do. It still makes me blush though.

What would be your ‘last supper’ if anything were available to you and where would you eat it?

I would picnic with my wife and daughter up a mountain in Swaziland. Guavas, lychees, papaya, mangoes, cherries, grapes, pineapples, smoked salmon, raisin bread, lemon sorbet, Christmas pudding – a fruitcide at sunset.