Hugh Grant at 55 is still, with the exception of a few more creases in his classic leading-man features, boyishly handsome. "It was not my ambition to be a professional actor," the Oxford-educated Grant said, reminiscing about how he got from there to his latest venture, co-starring with Meryl Streep in a quirky new Stephen Frears film, "Florence Foster Jenkins," the true tale of a tone-deaf would-be opera singer.
His breakthrough came in 1994 with the hit offbeat comedy "Four Weddings and a Funeral," and he stayed hot through rom-coms such as "Notting Hill," "Bridget Jones's Diary" and "About a Boy."
With the fact-based "Florence Foster Jenkins," he's gotten hold of one of the more enigmatic characters he's ever tackled, a failed English actor named St. Clair Bayfield who lives with Streep's character.
Grant's film work has grown more sparse in the past several years, as his family responsibilities have become more complicated. "I seem to have a child every second Thursday," the actor joked. From 2011 to 2015, he had four children with two women.
"I think that's why Stephen Frears chose me," Grant said of his casting in "Florence" as a man capable of remaining happy with a woman who couldn't consummate their relationship. "Because I think Stephen saw a man with a rather unusually shaped domestic arrangement, he thought: 'Ah! Hugh!' "
"I'm a great believer in eccentrically shaped modern families," he said. "As long as everyone loves each other, it can work very well."
Washington Post
