This week, Hugh Grant joins us pre-coffee and commando. Diplomacy, an evil Champagne Baron, the Shanks, Greed & Laziness, and the very slippery slope of douchebaggery. “The whole thing started by mistake,” it’s an all-new SmartLess. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of SmartLess ad-free and a whole week early. Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.
Chapter 1: What does Hugh Grant buy at the supermarket?
Hey, guys. I'm off to the supermarket to do some grocery shopping, and I thought you guys would like to know what's on my list. Here we go. Ready?
Chapter 2: What does Hugh Grant think of solo outings?
Yogurt, granola, tomato sauce, ketchup, dried fruit, baked beans, nut butter, chocolate milk, cereal bars, bread, condiments, salad dressings, protein bars, candy, tea, crackers, energy drinks, canned fruit, juice, coffee, soda, ice cream, barbecue sauce, and cakes. Welcome to Smart List. Smart List. I had a great day yesterday. Yesterday, remember we were talking about my heart bullshit?
Oh, yeah. Did you get a new one yesterday? No, I didn't get a new one, but I went and ate lunch by myself. I had really bad sushi. Then I went and I bought two books and I had an ice cream cone on the way home. I was like, this is it. This is solo? This is by myself.
This is to make your heart better? Yeah.
Yeah, it was, and then I went into the bookstore. Hey, by the way, do bookstores make you want to poop a little bit? Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? No, I don't. There's something about just standing on your feet that long. I think gravity takes over. No, but it's like the coziness of a bookstore, the coziness of like a pharmacy, you know? No? Hang on. Sorry. Or like a gift shop.
Sorry, coziness? No. Yeah, there was a comparison between a bookstore and a pharmacy. Well, yeah. A similarity? Like the quietness of it and the coziness of it. It really gets my stomach going.
This hypochondriac finds pharmacies comforting and cozy.
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Chapter 3: What new show is Smartless Media launching?
So, JB, a bookstore is a place where...
Okay. Which seems like a perfect segue to go into something we should talk about just for two seconds. Smartless Media is now doing a new show called Clueless. Yes. I've heard about this. Yes. You both were on an episode, actually our first episode. Yeah. And it's out now. So this is not a podcast starring Alicia Silverstone, right? No, that is correct.
It stars the host.
Very good. The host is Elliot Kalin. He's the former head writer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Mystery Science Theater 3000, a bunch of great stuff. He's so funny, and I'm the permanent contestant. You're the clue-less part of it. He's the clue-full part. That's exactly right. It's like 10 to 12-minute episodes of just puzzle podcasts, and it's super fun. So they're little sprints.
Yeah, you can try to solve it while you're driving or listening to the show, and it's only 10 minutes, and it's super fun.
Will, how long do you take playing Wordle each day, Will? Yeah. What was it take for you to get through Wordle? Pretty quick. Pretty quick because you usually bust real fast, right? You just guess, guess, guess, guess, I'm out.
I sure don't. I would stack my Wordle in timing and also success rate against yours any day.
No, no, you're definitely smarter than me.
Anyway, so Clueless is coming up. It's great. You should listen to it.
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Chapter 4: How does Hugh Grant feel about cinema closures?
That's good. Yeah, he likes to be cupped. And Jay, how do you go now? Do you not wear any undergarments?
No, no, no. I'm into the boxer briefs now. It's a semi-cup. Yeah, same. Okay. I think that's the answer.
So Hugh, we can, listen, and feel free to say no, we can send somebody over with a variety if you'd like.
No, I've already asked a concierge in a hotel to provide some. He looked surprised. I'll go shopping.
Hugh Grant, honestly, you know, I do feel... I'm sorry to say, you're one of those sort of film stars that I feel like, because I've seen you in so many films, I feel like, oh, yeah, well, it's Hugh Grant, whom I know from earlier. And there is that sort of familiarity that we have through roles. And you have done so many different... And now...
I think I'm safe to say you're doing something that is completely new. Now you're doing this sort of horror film, if you will, for lack of a better word, right?
Oh, yeah.
I love it.
No, that is correct. We can call it horror, or we can call it psychological thriller. Perhaps for people who are frightened of horror films, like me,
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Chapter 5: What was Hugh Grant's early acting career like?
So those are things that deem you ineligible for her pleasure, right? Yeah, that's correct. So you're a coffee man, full combustion engine.
So all three children are adopted. So what does she see in you, man? I know. It's a mystery. And she was married before to a very butch ski champion instructor or something. There was an ugly moment when I was filming this film, Heretic, in Canada. When I went for a walk one day, we were filming in Vancouver, I went for a walk on Whistler Mountain nearby.
And I told my wife on the phone, and there was a bit of a silence, and then it turned out that her ex-husband lives on Whistler Mountain. I'm not very good in nature. And I did get into slight difficulties that day. And I had this nightmare scenario in which her ex-husband rescues me. Carries me down the mountain over his shoulder. That would have been a low point.
He rescues you because he lives in the trees. Because he's living close to the bone on the land. He's sort of hauling logs through waist-deep snow. Yeah, well, that's him.
And we will be right back. And now, back to the show.
Hugh, let's go way back. Let's go way back to... So, I think for a lot of people, certainly in this country and in Canada as well, I'm going to speak to my fellow Canadians, we sort of came to know you, I think, through Four Weddings and a Funeral was the thing where everybody went, oh, this guy is amazing. But truth be told, it wasn't your first film. You'd made quite a few films before, yeah?
Yeah.
I had a career before Four Weddings, but it was a bit lame. I specialized in really low-quality miniseries. Like Judith Krantz's Till We Meet Again. I was always, for some reason in these miniseries, I was always a champagne baron, an evil champagne baron. I did hundreds of those parts.
And I, you know, used to sell the family reserves of the best champagne to the Nazis and then get horse whipped out of the house by Michael York.
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Chapter 6: What does Hugh Grant think about his film roles?
Wait a second. Now you're speaking our language. Jason and I are in two hours. We're teeing off. And if you ever are in town and you want to play with us, Hugh, please do. You just said, can I come? I just asked. Okay. No, I can't today. You'll be glad to hear. We need a fourth tomorrow. We need a fourth if you can play tomorrow.
So, Hugh, talk a little bit about, you know, when you say jokingly, you said, you know, too old, too ugly to do the rom-com parts anymore. But, you know, talk a bit about sort of the half serious part of that where, you know, your looks still are incredible.
But that was a large part of what we knew and loved about you was this incredibly handsome, dashing man providing the lead in all of these films, which I'd like to still see you do considering your incredible looks maintaining here. But was that something that got in your way like some –
sort of, you know, famous, famously beautiful actresses of our time have often mentioned that, you know, they weren't taken seriously because they were so gorgeous. I mean, you know, was that ever something that you thought, well, you know, I want to be taken seriously as an actor, but people are hiring me for my looks. Was that ever something that was a problem?
Well, I entirely lost faith that I could do anything else. I believed my critics, really. But I see now maybe I was wrong, because at the very beginning, If I had any talent, it was for doing strange characters and silly voices and things, outlandish things that were nothing like me.
And I had this comedy group that was actually quite successful, the London and Edinburgh sort of fringe circuit, which was all character stuff, you know, silly characters. What kind of year was it? That would be mid-'80s. Okay, okay. And... Yeah, we used to perform in pubs with people like Mike Myers. He was next on the bill. And that was fun.
And actually, just after I made Four Weddings, I shot another film with the same director before Four Weddings was actually released, which was, you know, I was a nicotine-stained, predatory... evil, twisted, unpleasant theatre director. And I was pretty good. And I wish that at least I'd kept that other strand of my career going through all those years and years of rom-coms.
Not that I hasten to add. Not that I hate the romantic comedies. I'm proud of them. It's nice to have made films that actually entertain people. And they're much harder than people think. And in some cases, much better, I think, than the sneerers think. My wife's good on this. She was watching, I think, Love Actually the other day. Because we like to watch one of my films every night.
I make all the children watch it. If they don't watch them, they don't get fed. And she said, quite correctly, she said, what's good about this film is that it's about pain. And those, the good romantic comedies I did were really about pain. It's about humor dealing with pain. The pain of being in unrequited love, et cetera.
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Chapter 7: How has Hugh Grant's career evolved over time?
Yeah, I was going to say that. It seems like you've kind of been on that track a little bit. Yeah, and you've been sort of mixing it up. Yeah, I have mixed it up.
Yeah, I'm so late to the party, but The Undoing is a perfect example. You were so great in that with Nicole Kidman. And I loved that series because I'm a big fan of thrillers and stuff like that. So that was incredible. I loved that series.
Oh, that's nice of you. Yeah, not easy. But very well directed, that thing. Very well. Susanna Beer, Danish, you know, that whole Scandi Noir thing. She made that what it was, I think. Really cool. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, I don't want to spoil it, but it's ancient history now. To be that charming guy, the ideal husband, he's a cancer doctor for kids.
loving to his child, loving to his wife, marvelous. And it turns out he's an absolute savage psychopath. Yeah, I love that.
You know, it's funny, Hugh, you seem to have like this very sort of, I got to say, kind of refreshing and very... I don't even know what to say. Sort of honest, this sort of... sort of self-appraisal that you're doing and maybe it's because and I and I will say I do share with you as now that I'm north of 50 I'm 54 I spend a lot of time I don't take as many things as seriously as I used
when I was a young man, certainly when I was a young actor. Certainly, my career, I didn't have the career that you did in film. In fact, I always joke that if it wasn't for bad films, I wouldn't have made one. But you seem to have this very sort of healthy, self-deprecating thing. And it's not even self-deprecating.
I think it's quite, it's obviously very funny, but it's also, I wonder how much of it for you is cathartic to just... kind of let it all go and not be serious about it. Is that a conscious decision? I quite like it, and you're encouraging me to do it more about myself.
Well, I don't know. I mean, I feel actors can sometimes get a little pious or reverent about what they're doing, and I've never been able to go down that alley. I do, in the end, think we're in the entertainment business And if you're not entertaining people... What are you doing? What are you doing? It's a bit of a... It's a bit masturbatory. Yeah. I agree.
I agree.
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Chapter 8: What is Hugh Grant's take on humor in horror films?
Yeah. To produce one of those films, we used to call, you know, the cleaning lady in the editing room and just say, come and watch this film. And then suddenly you could see it. You see it through someone else's eyes. But I couldn't.
I couldn't see what other people... What about writing, Hugh? Have you done any writing or any film writing, any other kind of writing?
Well, increasingly, I ginger up my dialogue. Not on every film, but on some of them, a lot. A lot. Maybe up to 80% is scribbled by me. Oh, really? Yeah. There's nothing wrong with that.
And then how do you navigate that tricky process of... Not offending anyone. ...sort of asking? Well, yeah, and like you got to kind of pitch that to the director and or the writer or the other actors. And then what if they say, yeah, no, I like it the other way. And then you're like, yeah, but I'm the one talking and I don't want to sound like an idiot. So here's the better dialogue.
I agree. It's a little window. I'm a master of that.
particular labyrinth though and i also am fully aware that nine times out of ten when an actor says i got some ideas it's going to be shit and yeah yeah you don't want to hear it and then you dread it and then you know sometimes the director will have to say now let's do one of yours uh just which you know is going to end up on the cutting room floor just to keep him happy
I imagine, I don't know you, but I imagine that diplomacy is one of your strong suits. You're a flat-out genius at that. Yeah, that comes across rather well.
It would help you with directing.
Yeah, it would actually help you with directing, because that's all it is, isn't it? I mean, it's a lot of it.
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