GQ-Magazine.co.uk – 11th November, 2013

By Brett Leppard

Image – Rex Features

The “finest wines available to humanity” are conspicuous in their absence – but Richard E. Grant is still remarkably chipper. Sitting in London’s Soho Hotel after a long day promoting his new black comedy, the man who will for some always be Withnail is keen to discuss his new starring role alongside a resurgent Jude Law. To mark the release of Dom Hemingway here he discusses his new GQ fragrance column, working with Lena Dunham and the art of foul language.

GQ: What was key for you in getting the costume right?

Richard E. Grant: Julian Day, the costume designer, and Richard Shepard, the writer/director, were very specific on wanting these tinted Hunter S. Thompson-style glasses. Once those were on my face – and I have a very long head – they said, “Don’t cut your hair”, it’s a mullet hairdo from the Seventies. Then they kitted me out with all this retro Seventies stuff as though my character Dickie Black had had the bloom of his life in the Seventies. I thought, “I’m not going to mess with that, I’m going to stick with that look”. People have asked when they’ve seen the poster or trailer if the movie is set in the Seventies, but because the Dom Hemingway character has been in prison for 12 years, so he’s in a time warp as well. These two fish out of water characters get together in this odd double act of friendship, their look is of another era.

What’s the best bit of style advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t over-coordinate whatever you’re doing and don’t be afraid to just do what you feel is right for yourself. I suppose that Robert Altman, the late great director I worked with three times said, “You have to trust your instincts and finally do what is right for you, otherwise you will try and copy other people and that way madness lies.” Or you’ll be a fashionista, cloned victim of your own doing.

As a true connoisseur of swearing on screen, what’s the key to delivering profanity successfully?

The best swearer that I’ve ever learned from, apart from late father, is Bruce Robinson – who wrote and directed How to Get Ahead in Advertising and Withnail & I. He swears with such conviction and ingenuity that you can’t help but feel that you’re in a sort of poetic zone, in the same what that Dom Hemingway swears with an almost Shakespearean/Steven Berkoff style language which he speaks. You can’t help but be amazed and charmed by it.

As you get quotes shouted out to every day by fans, which Don Hemingway line do you think will get quoted back at you the most?

I’m chasing Jude, who’s stark naked, down an olive grove and I say, “I’m not burying your body out here! I’m too old and I didn’t bring the right shoes.”

You’re writing a fragrance diary for GQ and you’ve got a fragrance coming out next year – what can we expect?

Britishness in a bottle, that’s what it’s going to be. It’s called Jack, and it’s unisex. It’s coming out at Liberty exclusively in April next year.

When were you last star struck?

I’ve just done three episodes of Lena Dunham’s Girls, and she is a multi-talented, multi-hyphenate, extraordinary human being. I was completely gobsmacked to meet her.

Who is your best-dressed British man? Jude perhaps?

I’ll say Jude Law, go on!

Dom Hemingway is out now.