Richard E Grant on his Oscar nomination and why men must talk about mental health

Teetotal Richard E Grant made his name as a drunk in Withnail And I, and 30 years later he’s up for an Oscar playing another alcoholic. I couldn’t be happier, he tells Event, but it wasn’t always that way… 

Richard E Grant’s joyful reaction to being nominated for an Oscar, caught by his 30-year-old daughter Olivia on her mobile phone, received, he says, 3.3 million online hits in 48 hours and is possibly the happiest thing you’ll see this year.

‘I’m absolutely overwhelmed,’ says a euphoric Grant in the clip, who has just heard that his performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me? is up for best supporting actor. He is bouncing on the pavement outside his first-ever London flat. ‘Thirty-six years ago, I rented this bedsit in Notting Hill Gate, for £30 a week,’ he says. ‘I can’t believe that I am standing here as an almost 62-year-old man, with an Oscar nomination.’

Richard E Grant made his name as a drunk in Withnail And I, and 30 years later he’s up for an Oscar playing another alcoholic

Two days later, when we meet in a very starry penthouse suite in Soho, Grant remains sky high. ‘I feel like I’ve won just because I’ve been nominated. It’s still unbelievable.’

In the film, Grant plays Jack Hock, ‘an alcoholic, coke-dealing, HIV-positive gay man in New York in the early Nineties’, alongside Melissa McCarthy’s Lee Israel, a failed author who forges correspondence from literary figures such as Dorothy Parker and Noël Coward. When not drunk or chasing men, Grant’s extravagantly louche Hock passes the fake letters on to unsuspecting and dazzled New York dealers. It’s a potentially career-defining addition to a body of work that began with the equally extravagant alcoholic actor Withnail in Bruce Robinson’s 1987 film Withnail And I.

Yet getting from Withnail to Jack Hock has not been easy. Grant may be famous and wealthy – ‘I’m not a zillionaire!’ – but behind the joy is a story of mental breakdown and a battle to overcome a psychologically scarring childhood in British-controlled Swaziland, where his father, Henrik, was a civil servant.

His mother Leonne was having an affair with one of his father’s friends. On one occasion Grant, aged ten and supposedly sleeping on the back seat of the family car, watched as his mother made love in the front (a scene depicted in the autobiographical 2005 film Wah-Wah he wrote and directed). He has called it a ‘poisonous secret for a child to keep’. His parents divorced and Henrik became increasingly dependent on alcohol. When Grant poured away a case of his whisky, his father fired a handgun at his son’s head. ‘I stayed sane by keeping a diary,’ he tells me.

He’s remarkably open about his breakdown, about drugs, drink and Hollywood and his abiding sense that he has never quite made it, even now, when he is Oscar-nominated and about to appear in the new Star Wars film. ‘The paranoid part of my brain thinks maybe I’ll be cut out. That I won’t make the final version,’ he says.

But first he wants to go back to that London bedsit with its platform bed above the cooker. ‘You couldn’t swing a cat in there.’

Newly arrived from drama school in South Africa, Grant worked as a waiter, a painter and decorator and took acting parts when he could. His break came when Daniel Day-Lewis turned down the chance to play Withnail and he auditioned in front of Robinson.

Grant is remarkably open about his breakdown, about drugs, drink and Hollywood and his abiding sense that he has never quite made it

Grant is remarkably open about his breakdown, about drugs, drink and Hollywood and his abiding sense that he has never quite made it

Grant said ‘Fork it’ just as the director had imagined in the stomach-turning scene where Withnail encounters ‘something floating up’ in the kitchen sink at the hovel shared by Withnail and the titular I (played by Paul McGann). ‘He cast me and that changed my life completely,’ says Grant. ‘So if Daniel hadn’t turned down Withnail, I wouldn’t be in a fancy hotel suite talking to you.’

Filming Martin Scorsese’s The Age Of Innocence five years later, Grant flung himself at Day-Lewis’s feet. ‘I said, “Oh Daniel, I owe you my career.” And he said, “Arise!” Then he didn’t acknowledge me for the next three months because his character hated my character and he’s a method actor. Michelle Pfeiffer said to me, “It’s nothing that you’ve done personally – this is the way he works.” ’

Grant went on to make Prêt-à-Porter, Jack And Sarah and Spice World, a film he still calls a ‘win, win, win’ as Lena Dunham saw it and years later cast him in the hit series Girls. He had a house in the west London suburb of Richmond, where he still lives with his wife of 32 years, voice coach Joan Washington. He was wanted in Hollywood, he had friends such as Carrie Fisher and Steve Martin, and was fêted on chat shows. Then, when he was 42, life came to a halt. ‘I couldn’t get out of bed,’ he says. ‘I thought I was paralysed. My wife called Steve Martin, because she knew that he was one of my best friends who’d had analysis, and said, “Can you help Richard?” He did, and got me an appointment with Christopher Bollas, and that began a complete turnaround.’

Grant with Paul McGann in Withnail And I. Grant got the part because he said ‘Fork it’ just as the director had imagined when Withnail encounters ‘something floating up’ in the sink

Grant with Paul McGann in Withnail And I. Grant got the part because he said ‘Fork it’ just as the director had imagined when Withnail encounters ‘something floating up’ in the sink

The star American psychoanalyst soon realised that Grant’s problems were rooted in his childhood. ‘I was the exact age that my father was when his life imploded, and he had a ten-year-old child,’ he says. ‘I was 42, and my daughter was ten.’ Bollas suggested that Grant was recreating his father’s turmoil, and the only way out was to forgive his mother.

‘Any child of divorced parents wants to complete the circle, even if one of the people has died,’ says Grant. ‘My mother was still alive, but I’d been estranged from her for three decades. Christopher said, “You have to have a reconciliation, for her sake and, more importantly, for yourself. If you don’t, you will never have peace of mind.” It worked. I see my mother regularly. She lives in Africa but I speak to her on Skype once a week.’

And the therapy? ‘After 18 months Christopher said, “What you came for has been fixed and repaired. You don’t need to come back any more, but I’m there for you if you need me.” So far that hasn’t happened.’

The experience left Grant convinced that a healthy society allows men to express their fears. ‘When I see Prince Harry and Prince William being berated for being open about getting counselling after the death of their mother, it reminds me that there’s still a stigma around asking for help. If your leg is broken, you don’t think it’s going to right itself. Get psychiatric help if that’s what you need. I am living proof of how transformative and helpful it is. It saved my life.’

‘I WISH I’D BEEN ROCKY’

The best film I saw last year Roma is a masterpiece. It’s about what happens in a family, in all its permutations, and that’s why it’s connected with people across the globe. 

Favourite-ever scene in a film Meryl Streep playing Karen Blixen saying goodbye when she leaves Kenya in Out Of Africa. And that’s for obvious reasons – because of my having left Africa where I grew up. 

The part I wish I had played Rocky Balboa. As a man with no muscles, I’d have liked to run up and down those steps with some biceps. 

My all-time action hero Hugh Jackman in The Wolverine. He’s incredibly nice, and he works harder and longer hours than anybody I’ve met. He’d get up at three in the morning and go to the gym for two hours before work. 

Last box set you binged on Killing Eve. I watched the whole thing from start to finish. 

The next James Bond should be… Richard Madden. He was really amazing in Bodyguard and he’s the same height as Daniel Craig.

Today Grant is radiant with happiness and apparent good health. I tell him he looks fantastic. ‘Go to Specsavers, young man,’ he says. ‘I’ve been called tombstone-featured, lantern-jawed, bug-eyed, an undertaker’s assistant… That’s why I identified with people who had long faces, like Donald Sutherland, when I was growing up.’

I think he protests a little too much. In polo neck, slightly bashed-about corduroy and black brogue boots, he has the British dandy look down pat, that fantastic backwards bouffant is still going strong and he carries no weight. How does he do it?

‘I hate chocolate and cheese,’ he says. ‘I run in Richmond Park, but I don’t go to a gym in the morning and I don’t do yoga.’ And he’s not, despite the rumours, a vegan. ‘I stopped eating meat during mad cow disease, from 1990 until 2005, because I didn’t want to die before I’d lived 53 years – I wanted to live longer than my father. And no smoking or alcohol must have some effect on your health.’

Grant has been teetotal since he was 17, and was told he was allergic to alcohol after becoming spectacularly ill. The one exception was the occasion that Bruce Robinson insisted his star go on a 12-hour drinking binge, famously mixing vodka with champagne, to get closer to the role of Withnail. Robinson wanted Grant to have a ‘chemical memory’ of being drunk, and Grant obliged by projectile vomiting at Shepperton Studios.

‘When the doctor told me that I was allergic I said, “How am I going to stand in a bar with my peers and not have a drink?” He said, “Order a ginger ale and nobody will ask you anything.” It worked like a charm. Though people can get leery. I hear that, “Oh, you don’t drink?” and think I’m going to be coshed, because they’ve assumed I’m sitting in judgment. That’s when I know it’s time to leave.’ Has he ever resented his alcohol allergy? ‘If I could drink, I’m sure I would – the colours are great. A glass of red wine looks gorgeous. But then so does Ribena.’

 Grant with wife Joan Washington. On the vital support he received from Joan during his breakdown, he says: 'My wife called Steve Martin, because she knew that he was one of my best friends who’d had analysis'

 Grant with wife Joan Washington. On the vital support he received from Joan during his breakdown, he says: ‘My wife called Steve Martin, because she knew that he was one of my best friends who’d had analysis’

Richard E Grant with daughter Olivia on the day he heard of his Oscar nomination

Richard E Grant with daughter Olivia on the day he heard of his Oscar nomination

He says he drew on his father’s alcoholism in his performance as Hock, but they are very different drunks. ‘My father had a complete personality change and was violent, Jack Hock is never violent, he becomes more loquacious when he is drunk.’

When he first went to Hollywood in the Nineties, the clean-living Grant was the exception – everyone else was having a wild time, ‘though there was more cocaine around than alcohol at that point’. Did he avoid that as well? ‘Yes. If you’ve been affected by addiction, then you see the nuclear fallout from when things are completely out of control. All my life I have tried to avoid situations where things are out of control, and if you are drugged off your face, then you are out of control.

‘Hollywood is as clean as a whistle now. If you see an actor have half a bottle of wine at a meal it’s usually an English actor, and inevitably an American will sidle up to you afterwards and say, “Does he have an alcohol problem?” ’

Not everyone escaped Hollywood’s crazy days – when Carrie Fisher died in 2016, traces of cocaine and heroin were found in her blood. Grant recalls the time Fisher told him that he was no longer a tourist in Hollywood but one of the attractions. ‘I understand what she meant,’ he says. ‘But I remain just as wide-eyed in Babylon. I was at the Honorary Oscars Ball recently, standing with Melissa McCarthy and being praised by Tom Hanks, with Steven Spielberg, then speaking to Emily Blunt and meeting Oprah Winfrey, Clint Eastwood, Lady Gaga… It’s head-spinning. I’m amazed even to have been in the room as them.’

Hollywood has changed in other ways, with the emergence of the #MeToo movement. ‘Everybody’s conscious of it,’ Grant says. ‘It’s in every conversation that I’ve been having with people within the industry over the past year. That kind of behaviour is wholly unacceptable. You can’t eradicate it overnight, but the “Weinstein watershed” means you can’t go back to the culture that allowed that. The women – and the young men who’ve been vulnerable to other men – now have a voice. They know that they can be listened to. In the past, people were obviously told, “Duck down. Take it. Because it’s good for your career, just put up with it.” That is no longer the case.’

 Praise from Tom Hanks, meeting Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Lady Gaga… It’s head-spinning for me

Did it ever happen to him? ‘No. You don’t have to be a very, very handsome man or a very, very beautiful woman for that to happen to you, but it makes you a target – and I am not very, very handsome.’

Grant takes particular pride in his new film being ‘co-written by a woman. Produced by women. Crewed mostly by women. It’s the female gaze in action.’

It couldn’t have been more different to the shoot he’d just completed prior to starting on Can You Ever Forgive Me? – Logan, the final Wolverine film starring Hugh Jackman.

‘James Mangold is an extraordinary director,’ Grant says. ‘But apart from Elizabeth Rodriguez and a child actress who was half mutant, half human, it was completely testosterone-charged. There was a crew of 300 men, big machines and cranes and guns and stunts – a machismo world, where the motive for everything is basically revenge and death.’

He reveals that his daughter Olivia recently encountered male aggression on public transport. ‘It was fairly late at night and she was verbally abused by a guy at the top of his voice. She felt very threatened and frightened. She knew she couldn’t physically fight back, so she very quietly and calmly asked him what his name was and then said, “You’re really frightening me” and “Do you have a sister or a mother?” He said, “Yes.” And she asked, “What are their names?”, and he told her, and then he started crying because he felt so ashamed. And she said, “The way you’ve spoken to me, if you spoke to your mother or your sister like that, it would be very frightening and insulting.” And he apologised. I was amazed and proud that she’d had the presence of mind to do that.’

Grant as the alcoholic Jake Hock with Melissa McCarthy as broke writer Lee Israel in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

Grant as the alcoholic Jake Hock with Melissa McCarthy as broke writer Lee Israel in Can You Ever Forgive Me?

In part because of his own troubling relationship with his parents, Grant has tried hard to be a good father to Olivia, no matter what his career demanded. ‘I’ve attempted to keep a rule: never to be away for more than three weeks,’ he says. ‘If I was working in other parts of Europe, I would fly back at the weekend. More often than not, I was one of the few fathers who was at the school gate to pick her up. I’ve asked her if she ever felt that I wasn’t present and she said, “What are you talking about?” I am grateful for that.’

Olivia and wife Joan will be by his side for the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on February 24, though he insists he won’t win and that Green Book’s Mahershala Ali’s name is on the award. ‘I’m in the honeymoon period right now,’ he says. ‘When you haven’t yet been told that it’s not you. So I’m enjoying the ride, for as long as it lasts.’

Just in case he’s wrong, look out for a very happy almost 62-year-old man holding a ginger ale. And don’t worry if you miss it, Olivia’s got her mobile. 

‘Can You Ever Forgive Me?’ is in cinemas now

 

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