Film Review Magazine (Special Edition) – 1997

Helena Bonham-Carter, faced with Richard E. Grant’s drunken groping in a dim and wet Westminster alley, slaps his face sharply and storms off. Showbiz scandal? Nothing so dramatic. Just a scene on location from Keep the Aspidistra Flying, the George Orwell adaptation that landed the Opening Night Gala at this year’s London Film Festival. Its stars, a pair of talented and highly recognizable British film actors, dominate proceedings.

“I’m effectively playing George Orwell from his autobiographical novel, which he wrote before the success of Animal Farm and 1984,” says Grant. “The character is ‘Gordon Comstock’, but it’s very clear who he is. So it’s a classic, bittersweet romantic comedy of England in the early 1930s, when Orwell left advertising and went ‘Down and Out in Lambeth’ to be a poet. It’s not hugely plot-driven, but after Withnail & I that doesn’t bother me.

So it’s another jaded outsider, 10 years after Withnail?

“That’s why I was cast. I’m not naïve. I don’t mind, because Alan Plater’s script uses every opportunity for narrative or dramatic development within the book.”

The stars have worked on film together before in Twelfth Night, “where I was pretty horrible to Richard,” admits Bonham-Carter.

As they prepare again fro the dramatic slap, Helena laughs. “I don’t quite know how to do it without hurting – you have to make contact. I started slapping him in rehearsal, and he said ‘Do you mind not slapping me yet, please?’.” Sure enough, the first take sees her collapsing into gentle giggles at the face-stinging moment, but by the third take everything works to order in the sequence.

So how do you approach playing one of the great writers of the 20th Century?

“Obviously I started with the biography, and found he had a long face and short hair – so I’ve got those……. next, parallels from your own life: I have the experience of being unemployed…… and of writing, although superficial film diaries are hardly proper art and literature!”

The ‘superficial film diaries’, better known as With Nails, has wowed critics and public alike with its honest, unglamorous, account of life as an actor. Was he surprised at its success? “Surprised, no. Staggered, yes. It was a huge relief, because I felt very responsible. A film can be a popular or critical hit because of all sorts of people’s contributions. But if the book failed I could hardly claim ‘well, it’s because Nicole Kidman wasn’t up to scratch’.

“Going on the book tour was about the most ego-massaging thing ever. You walk into a sold-out hall, read some extracts, answer some questions, and people have only come for you. Because writing is so solitary compared to the communal work of theatre and cinema, to have an audience responding was a real bonus.”

The diary offers a retrospective look at many of the key events in Grant’s professional and private life. With hindsight, wasn’t there the temptation to change any of the entries?

“I could have been wise after the event, but the point of a diary is day-to-day accounts. Take Hudson Hawk. Hollywood’s most successful producers offered me the lead role opposite Bruce Willis for more money than I’d ever had. Their Die Hard had transformed Alan Rickman’s career, the director had been behind Heathers….and then it all went wrong.

“You can be so thrilled at any project’s start, but like William Goldman says ‘Nobody knows anything’. Otherwise we’d be making classics with every movie. So, of course, here I am telling you how well-constructed this script is, but I don’t know how it will turn out. I have no control.”

He seems to have appeared with just about everybody in the business. Is there anyone left he’s dying to meet or work with?

“Oh God, yes, tons. My starstruck-ability hasn’t diminished in any way, shape or form. People say I must be cynical by now about the industry, but I still find talent hypnotic. If someone’s very successful there’s almost always much more to the person than the persona they’re known for.”

Grant, as ever, is working on Steven Poliakoff’s Food of Love, Serpent’s Kiss with Ewan McGregor, and after the Aspidistra shoot – as the foxy fivesome’s manager in Spice World: The Movie.

“I’ve never been ruthless or self-possessed enough to say ‘I will only play leading roles’. I wouldn’t have missed the chance of my supporting role for Jane Campion in Portrait of a Lady for anything. The best director I’ve ever worked with.”

High praise from an actor who has worked for directors he idolized in adolescence: Scorsese, Altman, Coppola.
In contrast to some of his big Hollywood productions, Aspidistra has a modest budget and some urgency in the schedule.

“I can be married in the morning, have a death scene at lunchtime, be drunk in the afternoon and hospitalized come evening. There’s no sitting around – we’re only here now waiting for darkness. Normally I have the huge luxury of being able to write and read in between scenes. Not on this one!”

So what about the famous Grant diaries. Are there any plans for more to be released?

“Yes, for my mental salvation. I’ve been asked to write another volume, and a novel, By Design, set in Hollywood. It’s an insider’s view. I can disguise the stuff I couldn’t put in the diaries. My reservation about doing more of those is losing the ‘Dick Whittington’ aspect of my arrival in London as an unknown. But it’s fantastic to get paid for writing something I do for my own entertainment.”

Anybody who has had any sort of working relationship with Grant faces the prospect of turning up in the upcoming diary, including Bonham-Carter.

“Well, I’m slightly worried about reading the sequel with a dawning sense of horror. But ultimately, Richard’s such an honest person – upfront and direct, completely un-English in many ways – that you start telling him things you wouldn’t tell your best friend. We shall see when the sequel’s published whether I really want to work with him again,” she reveals with tongue-firmly-in-cheek. Or at least it seems that way.