I’ve put a few new trailers up on the site the past few days. Trailers for The Match, Hudson Hawk and Twelfth Night are now in the “Filmography – Trailers” section of the site. The quality of some of these are less than desirable, but I’m only able to work with what I can find so these will have to do for now.

Richard’s appearance in The Curse Of The Fatal Death is also in the Trailer section for the time being, but as it’s not strictly a trailer it may move to another part of the Temple site before long.

The trailer for The Serpent’s Kiss has been fixed (basically I reformatted it into a Quicktime movie as all film media on the Temple site will now be done in Quicktime).

For Aussie REGimentals:- The Hound Of The Baskervilles has appeared on ABC TV as an “upcoming feature”. More news on an actual screen date as it comes to hand.

Ian Gabriel Showreel for Giant Films

Human cloning has been determined by a sheep called Dolly.

Great excitement surrounds the launch of the latest Liberty Campaign starring Richard E. Grant. J Walter Thompson, who recently acquired the coveted brand, created a campaign that explores the changing world we live in.

Richard talks us through the chaos of our world where “diets come in bottles” and “your kids can divorce you.” An exhilarating experience for all to work with a world-class actor and the cherry on top was his fantastic sense of humour.

View the commercial below.

The Daily Mail – 21st December, 2002

Richard E. Grant: The Hound Of The Baskervilles.
BBC1 9pm

Age: 45
Style: Describes himself as “Tall and skinny like a scarecrow, looking like an undertaker unless I smile.”
Attitude: Non-smoker, tee-total, vegetarian, you name it.
He says: “I have only ever been into a pub about three times.”
Finest hour: His sublime performance in Withnail And I
Don’t mention: Those Argos TV ads in which he plays a spoilt rock star.
They say: “I think they’re awful. I don’t know what Richard was thinking. It’s not as if he needs the money…”

— director Christopher Hall

Star Magazine – 21st December, 2002

By Steve Clark

Britain’s most famous detective Sherlock Holmes throws away his trademark deerstalker hat for a new version of the classic spine-chiller The Hound of the Baskervilles this Christmas. And the English sleuth is played by a dashing Aussie actor in the new multi-million pound production, which uses the latest computer generated imagery to bring the famous devil hound to life.

Richard Roxburgh, who starred with Nicole Kidman as The Duke in the hit movie Moulin Rouge and who will star with Sean Connery next year in The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, beat dozens of Brit actors to the role. His trusty sidekick Dr Watson is played by Ian Hart, last seen on the big screen as Professor Quirrell, the villain in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Richard E Grant plays archaeologist Stapleton, whilst Midsomer Murders and Bergerac star John Nettles appears as local Dr Mortimer and Matt Day as Sir Henry Baskerville. Linda Green star Liza Tarbuck plays dowdy Mrs Barrymore, Sir Henry’s housekeeper and Geraldine James is Mrs Mortimer.

Set on mist-covered Dartmoor, Devon in 1901, Sherlock Holmes is called in after Sir Charles Baskerville dies in mysterious circumstances – he may have been killed by a terrifying beast which is said to roam the desolate moor. Instead of using real-life Dartmoor, the film was shot largely on the Isle of Man, which has become very popular with film-makers because its government is happy to invest in movies.

On set in a spooky Victorian house, which is well-suited to the creepy tale, John Nettles (in a very straggly beard), who spent years on the tiny island of Jersey quips: “I can’t seem to get away from bloomin’ islands.”

Meanwhile, Liza Tarbuck enjoyed sessions of the game Boggle in between scenes. “One of the highlights of my year was trouncing Richard E Grant at Boggle,” she laughs. “He was really good, but I was even better! Every time we had a break we’d sneak off for a game – but I can’t possibly tell you the words that Richard came out with!”

In the film Geraldine James – who as medium Mrs Mortimer has to conduct a séance to try to find out from dead Sir Charles Baskerville how he was killed – talked to real-life medium to learn how to contact the dead. “I’d been to a real séance before to prepare for another role so this time I spoke to a medium on the phone,” says Geraldine. “We talked for hours and she was fantastically helpful. I do believe people can talk to the other side. I am convinced that humans can have certain powers. The only similar experience I had was years ago. I was miles away from home, but I just got a strong sense that my mother needed me – so I came home and was right.”

Sherlock Holmes itself was all-new to Swaziland-born movie star Richard E Grant. “I’ve never seen a Sherlock Holmes film or read a book before doing The Hound of the Baskervilles,” he said. “I only really know him because of Baker Street tube station. I grew up in Africa and I read voraciously. I remember I used to read Agatha Christie novels as a teenager, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s books passed me by.”

Richard Roxburgh was thrilled to win the role of archetypal Englishman Holmes. “The producers spotted me in an Australian film I did five years ago,” he says. “I played a broad Aussie drug dealer, so I don’t know how they made the link. But I’m delighted that they did. Holmes is a great character to play and The Hound of the Baskervilles is a great story. It plays on a very basic fear of a big black dog that’s out there and is gonna get you! I read the book as a kid and it made a real impression on me, because it’s a very well put together thriller,” adds Roxburgh, 39, who starred alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II.

Dapper Holmes might be seen in smart suits some of the time, but that didn’t mean Richard didn’t have to rough it during filming and on one occasion, filming on the Isle of Man moors had to be abandoned due to high winds. He also spent a day up to his neck in mud for another scene.

“I had to dive into a big vat full of filthy peat and mud,” he says. “It was the riskiest thing I had to do for the film. It was really viscous and it actually did start to pull me under, which was what it was supposed to do to Holmes. I had to spend the best part of the day in it – and it took me days to get clean afterwards.”

He might be playing a super-brained sleuth, but Richard reckons his powers of deduction are pretty useless. “I am so unlike Holmes,” he laughs. “On the first day of rehearsals I went out to the shops from the studio and got lost!”

The Daily Express Saturday Magazine – 21st December, 2002

Richard E Grant will have you on the edge of your seat on Boxing Day. He tells Tim Oglethorpe about his eccentric habits and the BBC’s new adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles.Here’s a piece of showbusiness trivia with which to impress your family over Christmas dinner: the E in Richard E Grant is a truncated version of his surname, Esterhuysen (Grant is his middle name). Richard inserted the initial to avoid confusion with another actor called Richard Grant. Not a lot of people know that. And those that don’t but have seen his work – especially movies such as Withnail And I and the Argos TV ads – could be forgiven for thinking the E stands for eccentric.

For nobody does eccentric quite like Richard. In Withnail and I, his out-f-work actor character drank cigarette lighter fuel – and anything else alcoholic he could lay his hands on. In the hilarious Argos commercials, Richard camps it up as over-the-top pop star Zak and in The Hounds of The Baskervilles, BBC1’s big Christmas chiller, he’s up to his old tricks again as larger-than-life Jack Stapleton. Jack lives on the wild and windy moor, where the hound is said to roam, surrounded by a macabre collection of bones and artefacts. He definitely seems to be a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic. At one point, he fixes ace detective Sherlock Holmes with his steely gaze and says: “I must confess I covet your skull,” followed by, “Would you have any objection to me running my fingers along your parietal fissure?”

Sitting across a table at the West End private club Soho House, 45 year-old Richard seems anything but eccentric. He talks quietly, with just a hint of his naïve, southern African accent (he was born in Swaziland).

And while he might be dressed like a man about to take a bracing moorland walk (Lime green sweater, brown cords, sturdy shoes), his economical body movements suggest introspection rather than eccentricity. Until, that is, you notice he’s wearing watches on both arms. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it? “Not really,” he says, “One is on UK time, the other on Swazi time. I’m hopeless at maths, hopeless at working out what time it is wherever. I once made the terrible mistake of ringing someone in Swaziland at what I thought was 4pm but turned out to be 4am. I felt so guilty, I’ve worn two watches ever since.”

So it’s a practical measure, rather than something a little strange, and much can be said for his clean-living lifestyle. Here’s a man who has good reason for declining the pleasures of coffee, tea, cigarettes, alcohol and dairy products. “I just don’t get on with any of those. On the few occasions I’ve tried alcohol, I’ve been violently ill; I’ve tried hot drinks and don’t like the taste, and so it goes on.”

And those Argos ads? Further proof of Richard’s keen appreciation of the real world? Seems so. “I do them for the same reason – the only reason – that any actor does an ad; money!”

“Any actor who says that they are doing an ad for artistic advancement is … well, I’ve yet to met those people. When Sir Laurence Olivier did a commercial for Kodak cameras 30 years ago, nobody was under any illusion. He wasn’t doing it because he thought the technological advances represented by those cameras were going to be a great significance to life. He did it to earn lots of money.”

That’s fair enough, of course, and the grin on Richard’s face when I ask him how much he’s earning from the Argos ads suggest he’ll be able to afford his dream Christmas presents – a pair of 42-inch, flat-screened plasma TVs – without calling the services of Santa.

But is there a slight concern about damaging his artistic credibility? Is the man who became coolness personified when the cultish Withnail and I was released 15 years ago putting his image on the line? “I think that if I was speaking to the camera in the advert saying: ‘My name is Joe Bloggs and I recommend you buy this type of tea because it is going to transform your life and give you magical powers,’ then maybe so. But Julia [Sawalha] and I are playing two characters and not personally recommending anything. It’s just not that kind of advert.”

Richard’s pursuit of the down-to-earth and the matter-of-fact also extend to his family. He comes from a broken home – his mother, Leonie, walked out when Richard was nine – and the tall, dark-haired thesp has worked hard to achieve the domestic stability in his adult life that was lacking in his childhood.

His book, With Nails, a dairy account of his raise from obscurity to starring roles in movies such as The Player and Dracula, recall the pain of being away from his wife Joan Washington, a voice coach, and his daughter Olivia, now 13, as he pursued his career aboard. Is that why his upcoming projects – including movies Making Waves and Bright Young Things – are being shot within relatively easy reach of his London home?

“The truth is, I didn’t suddenly decide to cut back on working aboard,” he says. “Instead I was lucky. The film industry in Britain revived at the same time my daughter was starting school and I was therefore able to work more over here than I had done before.”

The revival he talks about has been a bit stop-start and Richard himself has appeared in the odd home-reared turkey. Remember Food of Love and Keep The Aspidistra Flying? No, not many people do. Movies like those demonstrate the precarious, unpredictable nature of acting – although that would never stop Richard encouraging his daughter to follow him into the profession. “I think you worry whatever job your child wants to do, but support from one’s parents is hugely important so I’d be right behind Olivia if acting is what she eventually chooses. At the moment though, she is 13 and changes her mind about what she wants to do on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. To date, she has expressed no interest in becoming an actress. But that could change.

“When I was her age, I wanted to be an astronaut, after seeing the first moon landings in 1969. My lack of maths let me down in this ambition, although to this day I hanker after space travel. I image it must be the most extraordinary experience to have a view of the Earth from above. I hope that, within my lifetime, space travel becomes more commonplace and that I can do it.”

At the moment however, the only place that Richard seems keen to travel to is out of the room where he’s being interviewed. He’s been polite and thoughtful but, towards the end of our chat, behaves like a man who has left a pan heating up in the room next door and wants to check on it before it boils over.

Just for a while, the E in his name stands for Eager to Exit.

The Hound of The Baskervilles is on BBC1 on Boxing Day at 9pm. With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E Grant is published by Pan Macmillan at £7.99 (paperback).

To see some scans of the actual article, click here, here and here.