The Actor Who Documented His Grief—And Shared It With the World
On camera, the actor Richard E. Grant tends to emit an unknowable, tenebrous quality: No matter how much his characters express, you always sense something between the lines that can’t quite be calibrated. In his new memoir, A Pocketful of Happiness, Grant elegantly summarizes his career as several decades of “minimalist villainy.” His characters have run the gamut from hedonistic wastrel thespian (Withnail and I) to authoritarian girl-band manager (Spice World) to utterly charming criminal accomplice (his Oscar-nominated turn in Can You Ever Forgive Me?), but if they share an attribute, it’s that you wouldn’t be even a tiny bit surprised if they stole your wallet.
In life, though, Grant has turned honesty into an inventive, impossibly delicate art form. Almost two years
