The intimately observed, decadent documentary series returns with its trademark combination of beautiful cinematography, revealing archive footage, illuminating interviews and deliciously witty insight from Richard E Grant as he explores a different city through its hotels in each of the 6 episodes.

With unparalleled access behind the scenes of the most weird and wonderful hotels of Hong Kong, Tokyo, Venice, Berlin, New Orleans and Miami, the second series of Richard E Grant’s Hotel Secrets delivers another dose of unadulterated escapism as its adventurous, secret-seeking host hops from hotel to hotel, one city at a time.

ContactMusic.com – 26th February, 2014

by Jack de Aguilar

It’s all going on on planet Grant.

Not only is he to star in a nation’s favorite period drama, but Richard E. Grant will have everyone smelling just how he wants them, too.News that Grant was cast in Downton Abbey came earlier on this month on Valentines Day, but now we know who he’ll be playing in ITV’s hit drama. Grant will play Simon Bricker, who visits Downton as a guest of the Granthams.

Richard E. Grant will turn up to the Downton set smelling of his own product, we predict

It’s been a long road for the British actor, who has been vying for a spot on Julian Fellowes’ popular show. Asked in 2012 why he had not been written in to the show yet, Grant replied: “I have no idea. I know Julian, but I was never asked. I’ve never been up for it. Maybe next series,” according to The Telegraph.

But he’s in now, and will be playing the historian Bricker.

“When you’re born with a 10ft-long face, you don’t get hero roles. But I’m not complaining as I have hugely enjoyed the wide variety of parts I’ve got to play,” Grant has said. “I would love to play your common, everyday guy, but I never get cast as that. It would be fun to play a chav and chav it up, but I can’t see it ever happening.”

But that’s not all for Grant fans, as the headline explicitly suggests: he’s launched his own perfume. “I’ve obsessively smelt everything all my life,” the 56-year-old actor said.

“Anya Hindmarch, the handbag designer, saw me with my head in a gardenia bush in the Caribbean two years ago, and she said, ‘Are you going to do something about that?’ And I said, ‘What psychiatrically?’ and she said, ‘No, make a perfume’. So I have done.”

Perfumes are usually launched by pop stars, and glamorous Hollywood actors – maybe the odd sports personality. So Grant’s new smell comes as a surprise. “It’s self-financed, self-made, everything, it’s been my passion for two years, it’s a big gamble,” he explained.

“There are 1,100 perfumes released every year, so it’s like an old guy releasing a record and hoping people are going to buy it. But it’s really good.”

Here’s Grant flogging his new perfume at the Bafta afterparty

Vulture.com – 26th February, 2014

By Denise Martin

Veteran actor Richard E. Grant was working on the film Dom Hemingway when its writer-director Richard Shepard, who directed several episodes of Girls, including “One Man’s Trash,” asked him if he’d heard of Lena Dunham. “My knees buckled,” Grant told Vulture in an interview last week. Dunham had written a role for him and wanted to get in touch. She’d been a fan of his dating back to his first film Withnail and I, and Grant had seen every episode of Girls — more than once thanks to his 25-year-old daughter. (“I can’t see how Lena had seen a film that I made before she was born,” Grant laughed. “It’s so particularly English, I’m always amazed when anybody outside of England’s seen it.”) When Dunham emailed soon after to ask if he’d consider playing Jasper — a.k.a. older, world-weary Jessa — it took the actor “a quarter of a nanosecond” to say yes. While on a break from filming his four-episode arc on the next season of Downton Abbey, Grant took some time to talk about making Girls’ latest episode, in which Jasper got super-duper high and tried to out-fast-talk Shoshanna. Plus, some colorful words about his soon-to-be-released perfume line, Jack.

Girls has already done two memorable cocaine episodes (“Welcome to Bushwick, aka The Crackcident” and “Bad Friend”). You’re part of a grand tradition now.

[Laughs.] Oh, sure. I hadn’t thought about that, but now that you’ve pointed it out, I’m delighted to be part of it. Listen, ever since I can remember, people have said, “You’re like an overwound clock,” so going into hyper coke mode is not the biggest stretch for me to do. Playing someone calm and very controlled, that’s a big challenge for me.

I had to rewatch Jasper’s conversation with Shosh because you both are such speedy talkers and I thought I was missing things. But he seems to go well with both girls.

Oh my gosh, Zosia is the fastest talker in the wild west. I remember Lena’s stage directions in the script were: You have to speak really fast. I thought, Oh fuck. What am I going to do? Zosia Mamet speaks at the speed of rockets. I actually spent a few nights trying to go as fast as I could while remaining comprehensible. So, I’m glad to hear you didn’t understand anything at all.

I like that Jessa is having to deal with someone like herself who’s been the bullshitter (and still sort of is), and I so loved when he called out her truth-telling in the season premiere (“You have to learn when honesty is righteous, and when honesty is nothing more than a party trick”).

How smart is that? Lena wrote that, and it’s like, How does she know that? I’m 56 and 3/4 and I’d have to think hard about coming up with a line like that. But as you know, she speaks in fully formed thoughts and paragraphs already. Smart as a whip, and wise beyond her years, that one.

And there was chemistry between you and Jemima instantly.

Well, the way that [executive producer] Jenni Konner and Lena work is that they give you a page of what they call “alts,” or alternate lines. I’d never had that experience before. They also encourage you to improvise on top of that. So, I think what you’re seeing is a result of all that. The other thing was they were all so friendly and immediate and open that I think within five minutes — because I’m a pretty nosy parker — they said, “Oh, you’re one of the girls.” Sent all my estrogen levels right up. I just got on with them, and they were very sweet because I’m older than Methuselah. I’d loved them before I even got to the set because I was so familiar with their onscreen personas, which are weirdly quite close to who they are in real life. The big delineation is that in real life they all have very healthy, sorted-out love lives.

I’d read that Lena asked you to go topless at one point and that you refused. How did that go over?

It was for the scene where Jessa and I are taking coke and I try and grab her. I said, “Please, can you give me one of those undershirt things to wear? I don’t think the viewers should be subjected to what I look like.” And they agreed. I didn’t refuse outright, but I asked for clemency. For my own peace of mind. For the viewers not to go, “Aaaaah! My God!”

You’ve said having your own perfume fragrance, Jack, is realizing a boyhood dream. Really?

I’ve obsessively smelt, put my nose down like a missile, to everything in sight, and everyone who knows me will attest to that. I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t do it. Plates of food, necks, flowers, linens, leather, cars, anything. When I was 9 years old, we had gardenias and roses in our garden. I loved the smell of them so much that I thought if I boiled sugar water and put them in jam jars with gardenia and rose petals, squished them up and buried them in the garden for a week, they’d transmute into perfume. Of course, they were just stink bombs. But I’ve always had this obsession, all my life.

Lena gave it a shout-out.

Yeah! I gave them all sample bottles. Lena’s boyfriend is named Jack, and she straight-up told me, “I thought this was a prank. I thought you weren’t being serious. But you are serious, and I have noticed you smelling everything in sight.” And she loved the smell.

At the New Yorker Festival, Lena mentioned that her favorite Spice Girl was Sporty Spice. You were the group’s manager in the movie Spice World. Did she ask you for any Spice Girls stories?

Lena asked what they were like and what it was like to be around them, because we did the movie right at the absolute acme of their global fame. She’s in an acme of her own, so talking about the Spice Girls must have felt like history to her. It’s a very curious thing for me. When my daughter was 9, I got offered the part in Spice World, and she said I had to do it. “But my acting credibility …” And she’d say, “No, no, you have to. You have to because I want to meet them.” So I did, and she was so thrilled. I had school playground credibility for about two semesters and then of course you dip into the other side when they go, “No, I was never a Spice Girls fan!” Now that generation has all come back around again going, “Yeah, we love the Spice Girls!” In essence, a similar thing happened when I got called to be in one episode of Girls. My daughter literally levitated. She’s a creative writing degree student, and she said, “You have no idea what it would mean if I could meet or be in the same room or breathe the same air as Lena Dunham.” I feel as a father if I’ve done anything right at all, I’ve done both the Spice Girls movie and Girls.

You’re on a break from filming the next season of Downton Abbey. Having appeared in Gosford Park, did Julian Fellowes finally just decide to call you up with a role?

Of all the Gosford cast, only Dame Maggie Smith was cast in Downton Abbey. I thought there was kind of, for want of a better term, a creative embargo there. That Julian didn’t want any overlap. But journalists over the years have said to me, “Are you going to be in Downton? Why aren’t you in Downton?” I didn’t feel like I could email Julian to say, “Oy! Can you please write me a part?” He knows who everyone is. He was an actor. I would imagine if I had done that it might have had the reverse effect. So nothing happened, and I thought, Ah well, I’ve missed out on the Harry Potter franchise, and I’ll miss out on the Downton phenomenon. Then a month ago, I got an email asking if I’d do four episodes, and instead of playing someone downstairs, like I did in Gosford years ago, would I play someone upstairs? I said yes fast. But it’s possible someone else turned it down or dropped dead. Who knows?

What are the benefits so far of being upstairs?

Better costumes. To be honest, I’ve only done one day so far. I can’t really tell you very much.

What can you say about your character besides that he’s a guest of Lord Grantham?

I’m allowed to tell you his name is Simon Bricker and that he is an art historian. I’m told if I say anything more my knees will be taken off.

Originally published in the February 2014 edition of British GQ.

Image by Tim McDonagh

PART THREE

Richard E. Grant
(Or the A-Z of how I got set up in the Scent business)

In the third chapter of Richard E Grant’s journey into the scented universe, the Withnail star battles the moneymen before a new friend rides to the rescue

No sooner have I bid au revoir to Grasse, than chief honcho at Robertet, Francis Thibaudeau, email-intros me to their London representative, Julie Harris. He suggests that we meet up and “make his perfume dream come true”. Atta boy! The French have taken me seriously, which bucks my day up a good deal.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink: The Power Of Thinking Without Thinking revealed that we make assessments of strangers within 15 seconds. It takes half that time to feel the warmth and kindness of Julie Harris who patiently outlined how the perfume market worked – high-end luxury brands sell well, as do their low-price counterparts, but the mid-range products are struggling in the current credit crunch.

Advising that it was “near impossible to go it alone”, Julie -suggested I meet up with someone who is essentially a one-stop-fits-all operator whose company will license, bottle, package, label and product–distribute via their in-house sales team.

I need to decide whether to aim for the luxury-store route signposted Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Liberty and Selfridges, or head for the Via Appia of Argos and Boots.

The Langham hotel is the rendezvous for our one-man-band meeting but it took all of one blink to know that this wasn’t going to go anywhere. If you’d called Central Casting for a “used car salesman” type, he was a perfect fit. Talked the talk and gabbed the gab. Ten to the dozen. As much as Julie had loved my perfume sample, indicating the direction I was headed in, this bloke loathed it and bluntly said so.

His invisible thought bubble popped up above his head and I could make out the word “ponce” beginning to spell itself out. Interspersed with a verbal fusillade from below opining that, “This ‘juice’ business is all a load of crap, just a bit of scented water bunged inna fancy bottle and blinged up inna box. Child’s play. Nothing to it. Done loadsa celebrity scents. You name ’em, I’ve done ’em. Did a straw poll of what people thought of you and they all said, ‘Quintessentially English and a bit of an oddball – an eccentric type’. So there you ‘ave it.” Topped off with a run-down of what profits we could make -together in less time than it would take to wind up a toy monkey.

I felt a pang for Julie because Mr Blokey and I were in no way a business fit and my aspiration to make a luxury perfume with integrity was kiboshed at the get-go. In other words, a no-go – a “thank you very much, we’ll be in touch” over-and-outski.

A few days later, Annalise Quest, the beauty merchandise manager at Harrods, meets me for some business advice detailing which perfumes are top sellers, the cost of floor space and staff, the short shelf life of celebrity perfumes and advice not to try and brand it with my name. “Why the vintage Union Jack flag idea for the packaging?” she asks.

“I’ve obsessively collected flags and bunting forever and want my packaging to be unmistakably British.” She also says that having a very clear vision is vital to success. “What are you going to call it?”

This question has been pin-balling around my head for a while and Anya Hindmarch suggested using my initials. However, the -prospect of a perfume called “R.E.G” conjured up images of Reg Varney or Terry-Thomas bounding up to a counter and demanding, “A couple of bottles of your finest R.E.G please, and don’t be shy with the wrapping!” Something quintessentially British, but what?

Annalise says she is having lunch with Kenneth Green, whose company is the biggest distributor of luxury brand perfumes in the UK and will ask him if he is prepared to meet me.

I’m overwhelmed at how generous people have been with their time, advice and help. A “do-re-mi” domino effect, with each contact opening yet another door that I had never imagined entering before.

May 2012: I drive to Weybridge, summoned by Mr Green himself, and upon entering the building, the big-name brands he distributes are all on display and seemingly following my every step, like those moving-eyed portraits in old horror movies. Kenneth Green is the original “no-shit-Sherlock” self-made man who gives you your medicine straight up. Identifying my chicken and egg -situation; needing a licence to make the perfume and -register its formula on the one hand, then needing to find an agent on the other, get it distributed and taken to market.

Sounds like a phrase from a fairy story, which at this moment this is all beginning to resemble. Confirmed by his follow-up email, while full of suggestions of whom to approach, a licence specialist friend of his in New York has warned that, “The market is very tough and I fear that Richard’s idea may be too niche to find a suitor.” “Niche”, “suitor” and “to market” have segued into fairy-tale Grimm-speak!

While sharing his contacts and business acumen, Mr Green’s prognosis is decidedly, “Stick to your day job, boyo” and be done with dreaming scents.

Two days later I interview 30-year-old multi-millionaire Dan Fleyshman who patented the phrase “Who’s Your Daddy?” for a line of drinks which made his entrepreneurial fortune.

Dan gives me this advice: “The story of why and how you do it, is the thing. No amount of advertising can compete with the story. Smell and packaging is important, but the sales distributor is everything. Avoid the giants. The corporate Goliaths will gobble you up and spit you out. Get the best team around you. Keep it simple. Can you identify your product or brand from ten feet away? Editorial is all!”

June 2012: But then, like all fairy stories, you need some magic and luck for a happy ending. And the wizard who came to my rescue, yet again, was Mr Roja Dove. And here’s how: “I want you to meet Catherine Mitchell at IFF perfume company.” That sentence caused a chain reaction to everything that happened next. Not only is the IFF office in Roehampton, a five-minute drive from where I live, but as Roja intuited, Catherine and I proverbially “clicked” in a blink.

Richard E Grant’s diary continues next month. His fragrance will be launched in April 2014 at Liberty.

REG has given a teaser on what to expect from his character in Season 5 of Downton Abbey. He’s stated:

“I don’t want to spoil anything but my character is set to cause some ructions. He definitely will shake things up. It’s going to be fun. I started filming yesterday. When I stepped on to the set at Highclere (Castle, where the show is filmed), I thought, ‘Yes, I’m home’ – I’m upstairs, naturally!”

It won’t be Richard’s first sojourn in a post-Edwardian country house, only this time he’s on the other side of the stairs. The British-Swazi actor played first footman George in the 2001 British mystery film Gosford Park, but has now risen to ‘toffee-nosed house guest Simon Bricker’ who pays an eventful visit to his friends the Granthams. It’s a reunion for Grant with series creator Jullian Fellowes (who co-wrote Gosford Park) and with Dame Maggie Smith. The Dowager Countess of Grantham played the Countess of Trentham in the movie that inspired the series.

One thing is for sure – Richard’s guest character is set to cause trouble in 2015!