The secret to why Hugh Grant is such a good villain.

Hereticthe twisty new A24 horror film from writers-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, begins with a question: Why would two young Mormon missionaries enter the home of a shady older man, despite strict instructions never to do so unless a woman is present? And why should they stay when it’s clear to everyone in the audience that he’s an unstable weirdo? The film’s answer is simple: because he’s Hugh Grant.

Grant entered the cinema as an object of desire. In Merchant Ivory production MauriceGrant is based on a gay romance that EM Forster wrote in 1913, but which he kept secret until his death in 1970. He is as beautiful as any man on screen, with dark, liquid eyes and a pale, delicate face that could have been sculpted by a Greek master. With his wild, floppy head of hair, Grant was seductive and mysterious – he played Lord Byron a year later Maurice– but it didn’t last until Four weddings and a funeral that he discovered the secret to his future success: playing characters who don’t realize they look like Hugh Grant. In Four weddings And Notting Hillto name just two of the series of now-classic romantic comedies that followed, such gorgeous women as Andie MacDowell and Julia Roberts practically throw themselves at his feet, but he’s so exhausted he barely notices. Four “Weddings” makes a joke of his inability to show up on time to one of the titular weddings – including his own, after all – but even in films where he’s not surrounded by alarm clocks, he exudes the energy of someone who’s always late comes. If he had a signature phrase it would be “My goodness, is The the time?”

Grant’s gift for constant confusion made him an ideal for romantic comedies: gorgeous but accessible, tongue-tied but pure of heart. In Notting HillHe hears a group of men making crude comments about the Hollywood movie star with whom he is enjoying an unlikely flirtation and jumps to their defense before realizing that all he can do is clumsily stammer at the perpetrators. (He calls his personality from this period “Mr. Stuttery Blinky.”) But it also allows him to engage in some pretty outrageous behavior that we’d be less likely to forgive if he weren’t such a lovable guy. In Four weddingshe leaves his bride at the altar and inside Actually loveHe reassigns a subordinate when he catches her kissing another man, but we forgive him, or at least we are supposed to, because there is no malice involved, just the romantic fumbling of a man who always last person knows what he wants.

In Bridget Jones’ diarypublished two years later Notting HillGrant begins to show us the darker side of this magic. His tirelessly cocky publishing manager begins an affair with Renée Zellweger’s advertising assistant, and although the sex is great and he’s clear he wants to keep it casual, he forgets to mention that he’s engaged to another woman. He comes running back after his fiancée leaves him, pledging his love and admitting that he is “a terrible catastrophe with a posh voice and a bad character,” a disarming admission that has captivated audiences of Grant’s previous films would have pulled. But for Bridget Jones it doesn’t stick. His character may finally be looking for love after a lifetime of hangovers, but he’s not ready for it and he’s not worth the effort.

Although Grant would stay away from romantic comedy for a few more years, he has only made one since 2009, albeit a new one Bridget Jones is scheduled for next year – his willingness to play an unapologetic villain showed him moving beyond the timid but compelling lead, and gave us the first signs of what we might call his villain era. 2012s cloud atlas, A centuries-long sci-fi epic in which Grant tapes his eyelids shut to play the sexually abusive manager of a Korean restaurant felt like a scorched-earth farewell to his sympathetic era – he credits the film with making that possible “Have fun acting”. again – but only in 2017 Paddington 2 that he had decided what to do next: play villains with gusto.

Phoenix Buchanan, the down-and-out actor whose underhanded machinations land Paddington in prison, sees himself as we’ve come to expect from Hugh Grant: full of charisma, outshining everything with a cheerful wink. But Phoenix is ​​long past his prime, which wasn’t particularly impressive to begin with – although his villain’s lair is filled with memorabilia of past successes, the only evidence we see of him practicing his craft is selling pet food in one tattered dog costume. In some ways, it’s a risky role when a star once known for his good looks brings out his own vanity – one that’s so relatable to his portrayer that the film’s writers simply chose the character in early drafts “Hugh Grant” – but Grant stepped in without any vanity of his own, treating his now-familiar mannerisms like the worn-out bells and whistles of an aging scribe. And it’s a joy.

In the 2020 miniseries The doomPlaying one half of a wealthy Manhattan couple opposite Nicole Kidman, Grant appears to be the perfect husband and father until a young woman he was having an affair with turns up dead. The series plays on his wife’s and our difficulty in accepting that someone who seems so harmless would brutally smash his lover’s skull with a hammer, and it keeps us in a state of suspended disbelief until it is confirmed that he is, exactly did that. There is something particularly chilling about the way we are forced to confront our own reluctance to accept a terrible truth about someone we think we know who couldn’t possibly have done such a thing.

Once America’s darling, Grant has become its offshoot. In Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among ThievesHe is the thief without honor, a treacherous villain who grins and betrays his former comrades. In WonkaHe takes on the role of a jaundiced Oompa Loompa named Lofty, a grumpy helper who scowls at work instead of whistling. (He used the film’s press tour to talk about how much he hated playing the role, but his dissatisfaction was so dry and hilarious that it’s hard to tell if it was on the same level or just one Expanding the part.) Both films made hundreds of millions at the box office, proving that audiences love to hate Grant just as much as they once loved to love him.

Grant’s character in HereticMr. Reed, is based on the same assumption. He greets the young women at his door, the sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East), as a crotchety old man, assuring them that it is safe to come in because his wife is in the next room baking a cake. When they realize there is no woman (and no cake), they are locked up, but Mr. Reed continues to work his magic, even as he reveals that they may never make it out alive. Mr. Reed is wearing a colorful cardigan and orange-tinted glasses, his adorable hair is now a greasy mess, and he has more confidence than he could ever have earned – he’s a guy who just thinks he looks like Hugh Grant. And he has other physical threats in store for them, although the greatest torture he inflicts on his young captives is a lecture on the history of organized religion, delivered with the smug superiority of a self-proclaimed expert who has just spent a few hours on it , scrolling on Reddit. Grant makes the game, which also includes a Radiohead song and the story of the board game Monopoly, both compelling and repulsive. And he punctuates his ramblings with a gesture immediately familiar to anyone familiar with his best romantic-comedy era, a sort of apologetic, squinted-eyed grin that seems to whisper: Can you blame me?

At an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live Last week, Grant reenacted iconic lines from horror films as if they were romantic comedy dialogue, adding a delighted grin to “Hello, Clarice” and cooing “The power of Christ compels you” as if it were a pick-up line. But his performance in Heretic suggests that there are fewer differences between genres than one might think. Like a bumbling leading man in a romantic comedy, a horror movie villain often uses the appearance of vulnerability to trick his prey into lowering their guard. (Imagine Buffalo Bill miscast.) Grant may claim that he’s turned away from romantic comedies because he’s “too old, fat and ugly” for the genre, but he’s clearly relishing the opportunity to to give his old audience a bit of a shock. If an interviewer at HereticWhen asked if it was hard to leave a character like Mr. Reed on set, Grant replied, “I’m still doing very well – I killed three people this afternoon,” and then he added with a familiar wink : “I feel terrible The.”