RICHARD E. GRANT
"IRONICALLY, PLAYING AN OUT-OF-WORK ACTOR IN WITHNAIL LED TO EVERY SINGLE JOB I’VE HAD SUBSEQUENTLY"
Can you take a one-second pause? I just have to answer this.” Richard E. Grant’s mobile has started ringing in the middle of our interview. He returns just a moment later. “I’ve just had a call saying I’m going to be arrested for tax evasion. It must be a scam, right? I thought it was a number I recognised. Sorry about that. If you ever hear about me in jail, you can say, ‘Yeah, I was there when he got the phone call.’”
It’s December 2020, and we’re chatting over Zoom. Thankfully, the intervening months haven’t seen the beloved 64-year-old Brit arrested for tax evasion; the only thing he’s guilty of stealing since then are scenes out from under his co-stars, in MCU series Loki and the upcoming Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, the musical adaptation that’s the starting point for our chat.
Dressed in a checked jacket, his neck snug with a brown paisley scarf, Grant is a natural raconteur, generous with an anecdote, and refusing to pull punches. True to the impression he gave on social media when he was doing the awards circuit for his frequently nominated turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, he seems genuinely surprised that his career has been going so long, seemingly still powered by the cult following of the ever-quotable Withnail & I. It was his first film, and he starred as the perpetually sozzled out-of-work actor of the title.
Grant doesn’t begrudge its popularity, acknowledging its ongoing importance in his success. “I have no problem with it whatsoever,” he smiles. “It’s the only script I can ever remember, and I found it genuinely funny, and it’s so true to what being an out-of-work actor is, that it would be churlish to deny its longevity or effect on my life.”
It led to work with great auteurs, and a consistent supply of roles over the coming decades. As a kid who grew up in Swaziland (now Eswatini) in Southern Africa – he reflected on his youth in the semi–autobiographical , his only filmto date as writer/director – Grant moved through the industry perpetually starstruck, but he can’t quite accept having that reciprocated. “I] that I do about other people.”
