The best movies show you sides of actors you didn’t expect to see. Hugh Grant’s new movie Heretic shows the former romantic comedy king playing against type as a deranged murderer. The directors of Heretic revealed that a cult classic science fiction film convinced them that Grant could star in a scary movie.
Hugh Grant got a role in ‘Heretic’ because of ‘Cloud Atlas’ When Grant first became famous in the United States, he was seen as a live-action version of Disney’s Prince Charming. For many women, he was a dreamboat, and he played romantic leads in movie after movie. He started playing against type around ten years ago, which has led to his new film, Heretic .
For the first time in his career, Grant plays a horror movie villain. Heretic was directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the writers of A Quite Place . During a 2024 interview with GQ , Beck discussed why he was willing to let Grant play a villain.
“The role for us was Cloud Atlas ,” he said. “Because up to that point, we were primarily familiar with what the world was familiar with, his romantic comedy roles. But when we started thinking about Hugh for the role, it was in retrospect [that] we started thinking that he’s always had an edge.
” Hugh Grant is not afraid of scandals Beck related Grant’s casting in the film to the time he had an affair with Divine Brown while he was dating Elizabeth Hurley — a tabloid scandal that happened around the time when Four Weddings and a Funeral came ou.