Hugh Grant thinks his ‘Notting Hill’ character was ‘despicable’

CNN
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Many people loved Hugh Grant’s character in the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill,” but Grant is not one of them.

He talked about playing William Thacker, opposite Julia Roberts as Anna Scott, during an interview for Vanity Fair’s “Scene Selection”.

“When I’m flipping through the channels at home after a few drinks and this comes on, I’m just like, ‘Why does my character have no balls?'” Grant said. “There’s a scene in this movie where she’s in my house and paps comes to the front door and rings the bell and I think I just let her walk past me and open the door. It’s horrible.”

In the film, Anna is a famous actress who falls in love with William, a Notting Hill bookseller. That meant navigating her fame, including the ever-present paparazzi, something Grant said his character didn’t do well.

“I’ve never had a girlfriend, or actually now wife, who hasn’t said, ‘Why the hell didn’t you stop her? What’s wrong with you?'” Grant said of the scene. “And I don’t really have an answer to that. That’s how it was written. And I think he’s despicable, really.”

Grant found fame as romantic leading men, but has been self-critical of some of his earlier performances.

“I have read that I hate all my films. It’s not true, the movies are often great. It’s only me I hate. I always think, ‘Oh, you’ve f***ed it’. he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. “You never feel good about your own things. It’s like in the old days with voicemail messages, you always felt sick when you heard your own voice. And seeing yourself on film is times 50.”