HIGNFY – 26th May, 2006

Richard appeared on Have I Got News For You (Series 31 Episode 6), hosted by Carol Vorderman along with Ian Hislop and Paul Merton. Dr Phil Hammond was also a guest on the show. Click on the video below to view.

Lorna emailed me to let me know that Richard E Grant will be doing Q&A sessions at the following cinemas after a special preview screening of “Wah-Wah”.

Friday 26th May
Richmond Filmhouse, Water Lane, TW9
Screening starts at 6pm

Saturday 27th May
The Picture House Greenwich, Greenwich High Road, SE10 8NN.
Screening starts at 7pm

Monday 29th May
The Gate Cinema, 87 Notting Hill Gate
Screening starts at 4pm

Wednesday 31st May
The Barbican Cinema
Screening starts at 7.15pm

Andrew from Lions Gate Films informs me that the UK website for Wah-Wah is now live and has loads of info on the film, plus the cinemas its going to be playing in from June 2nd. Please visit it to see the trailer and also to play Auntie Gwens Whiskeymania game (hours of fun). To go to the site, just click here.

As the BBC2 website for Open Book states:

“Film actor Richard E Grant talks about his film diary “The Wah Wah Diaries”, an account of his directorial debut of a film “Wah Wah” which he wrote and tells the story of his traumatic childhood in Swaziland.”

Sue W. put me on to this interview, which was featured on the BBC Radio 4 “Open Book” program last month. In it Richard talks about his new book “The Wah-Wah Diaries: The Making Of A Film”. To listen, just click here.

Sue also alerted me to an interview that Richard did with Tavis Smiley for PBS.org in America a couple of weeks back. This one also features Richard talking about the making of Wah-Wah, along with the AIDS epidemic that is sweeping his homeland of Swaziland. To read the transcript or listen to the show, just click here.

Received this email from Lorna today:

Hi there, I am looking after the PR for Wah-Wah and I wanted to let you know that you have the opportunity to purchase tickets for the charity premire taking place in London on Tuesday 30th May by clicking on the link below.

Waterford Wah-Wah.

The charity benefitting is The Waterford School Swaziland.

Would you post this message on line? Many thanks for your time.

All the best
Lorna

I should add that tickets are £50, but that’s a small price to pay for a worthwhile and REGiful cause…

New York Magazine – 15th May 2006

By Liesl Schillinger

(Photo: Fernando Leon/Retna)

The British actor Richard E. Grant (“Reg” to friends) is best known for his over-the-top comic roles, like the simpering, effete ex-husband in L.A. Story. So it’s surprising to discover that his maiden directorial effort, Wah-Wah, is a sincere and painful coming-of-age tale about a boy in Swaziland whose youth is scarred by his mother’s infidelity and his father’s alcoholism. It happens to be Grant’s own story, and he wrote the script himself. Liesl Schillinger spoke with him.

Do you know that the first sentence in your Wikipedia biography says you witnessed your mother’s adultery as a child.

What?! Well, I am surprised by that, but I suppose it’s because I’ve been married for 24 years and haven’t been arrested yet. I guess people want to try to find something to nail on you.

You mean, unlike the characters you play, you’re completely normal?

Well, I don’t think it’s odd, but other people have pointed out that I smell absolutely everything – from car bonnets to leather, new books, iPods, and mostly food, before I eat it. I have a keen sense of smell.

I take it the personal history in the movie is true. I mean, the boy’s father tries to shoot him. Did your father try to shoot you?

Well, I did provoke him by pouring out a case of his Scotch whiskey. I was 14. It’s called semi-autobiographical for legal reasons, and my father didn’t die when I was 15. I was 23. But, yes, basically, everything in it happened. I just concertinaed down everything to make it into a cohesive narrative.

In the film, Swaziland seems trapped in time – it’s the late sixties, when the country was getting its independence from Britain, but everyone’s listening to music from the thirties and forties. What was it like to go back?

I’ve gone back every year since I left – in 1982 – for a holiday. But I’d always wanted to write about this period of my history, as well as the last gasp of empire, and the subterranean pecking order that was about to come to an end.

You open with the boy watching his mother have sex with a man other than his father. Is your mother still alive, and what does she think about this?

She still lives in Africa. We’ve had an estranged relationship for 35 years, but in the last eight years, since I confronted her about what went on, she’s been writing me letters about what it was like being a bored colonial wife, then hearing my side of the story – what it was like living with my father’s alcoholism. It’s brought about a great rapprochement.

You’ve said, “Actors are lousy writers.” So how did you get people like Miranda Richardson and Gabriel Byrne to read your script?

Once they got past the stumbling block of thinking, Here’s another actor who’s written a script while he’s unemployed, they changed their minds.

Do you want to write more screenplays – And might they be funny?

Yeah, I want to write a story about the making of a disaster movie called Zeitgeist – basically a Fitzcarraldo in outer space.

Will you act in it?

Never. I loathe seeing myself onscreen. It’s much better to be a director.

May 15, 2006 issue of New York Magazine