Cut Magazine – 1989

By Kirsty McNeill

Best known for his manic performance in ‘Withnail & I’ as the poverty stricken, pill-popping, out of work thespian, Richard E Grant has again teamed up with writer/director Bruce Robinson to play Dennis Dimbleby Bagley, the successful enfant terrible of the advertising world in ‘How To Get Ahead In Advertising’.

With a serious deadline looming and a major creative block in progress, Bagley is suddenly struck by the revelation that his is a vile profession, motivated by greed and manipulation. He decides to rid his designer lifestyle of all traces of advertising, but discovers to his horror that he has already been contaminated, and is growing a foul-mouthed jingle-spouting boil on his shoulder to prove it.

It’s a fast and furious black comedy, with a razor sharp script, while Bagley is a dream of a part for an actor. Embracing the role with obvious relish, Grant is on screen in practically every shot. He brings an offbeat, left-of-centre presence to the role, with his skinny body and twitchy face. And he bristles with considerable comic talent.

The idea for the film had been with Robinson while shooting ‘Withnail & I’, and he obviously recognised the characteristics he was looking for in Grant.

“He thought he’d found a like-spirit to go ranting off the deep end with!” says the actor. “He has a very sardonic outlook on life and humour, as you can tell from his movies, it’s obviously something that I’m tuned into, and we’ve become great friends as a result. I realise that there’s a risk of the thing being a incestuous remake of ‘Withnail & I’ – you’ve got a dominant central character, played by the same actor, with the dialogue in the same style, by the same director. But God, the amount of dross that’s around: I’d run far to do what Bruce is attempting.”

Leaning back on the sofa in his comfortable home in quiet, leafed Twickenham, Grant is relaxed, charming, measured, and, well normal. He doesn’t drink, smoke or display any of the eccentricities of his onscreen persona. How did he maintain the level of frenzy that the role required?

“I suppose if you do it 15 hours a day, over a period of nine weeks, a kind of momentum builds up. Because I’d worked with Bruce before, he knew how far he could push me, and then some! As a director he does push absolutely right up to the edge, and over, and then chooses. So although it sounds completely uncontrolled, it’s not. If something’s gone to one extreme, he’ll say: ‘Right, just another couple of notches further up,’ and you either go or you don’t.”And I don’t find it difficult to restrain myself in that direction!” he adds with a wicked grin.

Although he gives the impression of being quintessentially English, Grant grew up in Swaziland, where his father was Director of Education. He then went to Cape Town University, took a degree in drama, and set up a theatre company.

“It ran out of steam after two years. I knew absolutely that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in South Africa: six years was more than enough. It was an extraordinary and interesting place to be, but the politics are omnipresent, whether you avoid or confront it. When people talk about free speech in England – well, compared to South Africa, it’s a different idea of freedom. Don’t think for a moment that I’m condoning what this Government has done; I don’t at all. But relatively, it’s easier for people here.”

Accordingly, Grant packed his bags and headed for the motherland in 1982: did some stage work, found a small role in ‘Hidden City’, and landed a part in the TV drama ‘Honest, Decent and True’. Then he met Bruce Robinson, who was casting for ‘Withnail’, and he hasn’t looked back since. Something of a movie buff, he prefers film to theatre work.

“I enjoy the process of doing movies. I get nervous, chronically so on stage, but movies are concentrated in different ways. The reality seems more tangible. You get to travel and the money’s good.”

Grant had his first encounter with Hollywood when co-starring with Julian Sands in ‘Warlock’, a daft piece of hokum in which Sands and Grant – as Warlock and Witchhunter respectively – are inexplicably whisked off from 17th Century Massachusetts to battle it out in modern day LA. Dubbed ‘Highlander meets The Terminator’, the film has been a surprise commercial success. As if the tacky special effects and dreadful Olde English dialogue weren’t enough, there’s Grant’s appalling Scots accent as well.

“Did you think it was bad? Well, my wife is a dialogue coach from Aberdeen so she’ll be very taken aback to hear that.”

Your co-star Julian Sands is used to turkey; what with ‘Siesta’ and ‘Gothic’.

“Your words,” he offers, “I haven’t seen them!”

Did he enjoy the opportunity to ham it up?

“God, I can see it in bold type:- ‘He enjoys hamming it up!’

You know the moment you’re actually saying lines like ‘God’s well-besmeared tarting hole’ you’ve got to galvanize every ounce of sincerity and conviction that you can. Believe me, you’re earning your money.”

No slouch, Grant can also be seen earning his money in two more productions in the near future. ‘Killing Dad’, the first film from Scottish Television’s new film production off-shoot, is a small scale, low budget comedy of circumstances from first-time British writer and director Michael Austin.

Grant plays a hair tonic salesman in a cast that includes Denholm Elliot, Anna Massey and Julie Walters. Then there’s Bob Rafelson’s ‘Mountains of The Moon’, a grand scale piece about 19th century explores Sir Richard Burton and John Speake on their epic search for the source of the Nile.

“It’s love, death, friendship, loyalty, ambition, greed, Empire – all the big ones. I play a sort of childish shit called Lord Oliphant who is in love with Speake. People are saying it’s going to do better business than ‘The Last Emperor’.”

And what of Robinson?

“Well we have talked about doing another film together. In fact, Bruce has spoken of doing Hamlet.”

Hamlet?

“As a black comedy,” he grins. “I play the Dame!”