Hugh Grant

Throughout my life, whenever I thought I'm dancing welI, I'm not.

I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages. They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that's what keeps marriages together.

I think there's something unromantic about marriage. You're closing yourself off.

Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No, No, No. Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No one ever said that was a good idea.

Theater has always been much more fun. You get a laugh, and it's really encouraging.

Something about teaching is curiously attractive, actually. I don't know what it is.

After I found that I had become an actor, slightly to my surprise, I did have some insecurity, and I did take some rather strange acting classes at a place called The Actor's Studio in London. I don't think they did me any good at all.

I'm quite jealous of my Scottish relations, in whose culture everyone, in a Jane Austen kind of way, got married very young, when you're too young to be cynical or jaded and just started having children.

The angry Scot is a cliche not without some foundation. That's the Lowland Scot - I'm a Highlander. We're particularly lovely and charming.

The emphasis in 'Notting Hill' was perhaps, I thought, slightly more on the romance than on the comedy. But I think 'Mickey Blue Eyes' is maybe slightly more on the comedy. And the tone on 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' it's a far sillier film.

If it's a choice between doing a film and not doing a film, I'd rather not. But then, you remember that you're supposed to be earning a living and that it's your career.

'Notting Hill?' Does that poke fun at being British? Maybe it does. In 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' that's kind of the point: the clash of worlds, the unlikely combo of a respectable Englishman and a mob guy. If you take out the Britishness, you don't really have much.

It's really frightening, American food on the whole. That's what always strikes me, coming from Europe: There's just so much of it! Then you plop down in front of the TV and watch ads for Weight Watchers. 'Lose weight now!' Well, eat less!

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

I'm a terrible actor. I'm still learning. When I first started, I wish I knew then to trust myself more, really. I was in a terrible panic in the early part of my career.

There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby's or something.

I suppose after 'Four Weddings' I was very busy for a bit, and I imagined that was my career, but I never had that thing of, 'I'm burning to be an actor. If I don't act, I'm not alive.' I've never had that.

Courage is soldiers fighting on the front line, or people living on the bread line.

Like lots of people who say, 'I'm going to write a novel,' it's actually more comfortable to think I could write a novel than to discover that you can't.

If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of acting: character acting and lead acting. And in my life, to begin with, in the 1980s, it was all character acting. And then when, by fluke, through 'Four Weddings', I got into doing lead parts, it's a completely different thing.

A lot of actors look at scripts and think, 'How will this stretch me as an actor?' But I always thought, 'Do I want to turn the page? Is this going to make people laugh?'

Comedy is probably a way of dealing with anxiety. Sometimes it's a way of dealing with pain.

I've certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I've accepted a part since then, because I've been given much better parts in films.

There was a phase in my career in my late 20s and 30s when I was doing strange, arty-farty Euro films that were, you could tell, never had much chance of any release anywhere in the world.

I frequently dream of having tea with the Queen.

I don't do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.

I get more satisfaction out of comedy stuff. I'm a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

I have this absurd syndrome where I get these out-of-the-blue, pathetic panic attacks. It'll be in a very easy, simple scene when everything is going swimmingly, and then suddenly, bang, I'm shvitzing and can't remember my lines.

Some newspapers in Britain have become closer to these kind of mafia families. They wield an incredible power. They choose our governments, they choose our prime ministers, and they live above the law.

At my school, which was all boys, I played almost exclusively lady parts. When I say lady parts, I mean parts that were ladies. To actually play lady parts would be weird, even by English standards.

I don't hate L.A., but I'm nervous about becoming one of those people who has a ferocious interest in how films did at the box office that weekend and, you know, would want to meet for egg-white omelets in the morning.

Love scenes are extremely difficult. You're always within a millimeter of sentimentality and 'yuck.'

If every play was three weeks, I'd do lots of plays. It's just the idea of six months, I think, that might drive me a bit nuts.

Brexit was a fantastic example of a nation shooting itself full in the face.

I never meant to be in romantic comedies; it's just what ended up happening. But they are tricky, in a post-1960s sexual revolution way. It was easier when you couldn't have sex scenes: everything crackled very nicely. They're not easy.

I get very annoyed when people think I'm nice or diffident or a polite English gentleman. I'm a nasty piece of work, and people should know that.

When I finished my degree at Oxford, I went and acted for a bit. And I was appalling. And with each part, I thought, 'Well, that's embarrassing. I'd better do one more to show people I'm not that bad.' And, in fact, instead of a taking a year, that's gone on for 35 years.

I dreaded the dance scene in 'Love Actually' more than having my teeth extracted.

I have known a few good marriages, but very few. And others look to me like they're pretty miserable. I don't really think that's a recipe for happiness.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

Frankly, I think I'm marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That's been my experience of film acting.

I certainly hated actors and, more importantly, they hated me.

I've always dreaded the sea - in fact, I get terribly seasick.

I've got four houses in my street. I live in two, and the others are empty. I'll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.

I just don't believe in love at first sight anymore, even though I've based my whole career on the concept. In my experience, power, money and influence always attract the opposite sex. It's something that I've always exploited - with good results.

I slightly lost my enthusiasm for most acting, but I've done some little bits and pieces - curiosities.

Although I'm largely doing other things in life, it's very nice occasionally to put my toe back in the waters of show business.

I'm not a great believer in marriages as an institution, or even in very long term relationships. I'm not sure we're built that way.