14th November 1996

‘What’s next?’ That’s always the question – ‘What’s next? What are you doing now?

In this touching, revealing and funny video diary, actor Richard E. Grant takes the viewer on a whistle stop tour through six months of his professional life, culminating in the ’96 Oscars. From the boredom of location filming to the hyperactivity of the promotional trail, the diary records a period of swirling highs and devastating lows. Supported by a rich cast of characters, from the bizarre to the legendary, Grant provides a unique insight into an often surreal world.

The diary opens with a trip to New York where Steve Martin reveals how he unwittingly attempted to pick up a schoolgirl and Graydon Carter, Editor of Vanity Fair, explains why it’s always actors who end up on his magazine’s covers: “There was a time when you could put scientists and engineers on the cover but you can’t anymore because the public appetite to find out more about them isn’t all that great.”

Back in England for the filming of Trevor Nunn’s Twelfth Night, and a discussion with co-star Helena Bonham Carter on a cow’s anatomy with reference to a plate of meatballs: “You didn’t know they had three.” The New Year sees Grant on the promotion trail, first for the re-release of Withnail and I and then to Canada (“driven round by The Incredible Hulk”) and the States for Jack and Sarah. In New York he discovers an ad for Jack and Sarah in which he’s been given a new nose and “airbrushed out so I look about nineteen. Bizarre.”

While on the chat show circuit he realises the distributors “have absolutely no confidence in the film whatsoever. I feel humiliated, really pissed off.” The week of the Oscars finds him in LA where he meets a hung-over winner and takes a dip with Steve Martin and Winona Ryder. The diary culminates in an audition with the celebrated film director, James L Brooks.

On an indifferent review:

“All I heard all day was ‘more than adequate’. I could have stabbed him.”

On his US agent:

“To be absolutely honest, I don’t believe a single word he said. It was all bullshit. Just papering over the cracks.”

On the Oscars:

“It’s the focus of everyone’s attention here (LA) – absolutely and unequivocally. And I’m so excited I can’t be cynical about it all.”