Contactmusic.com – 24th December 2015

British Actor Richard E. Grant Goes Overboard During The Festive Season To Compensate For Years Of Unpleasant Christmas Days With His Alcoholic Father.

Picture: Richard E Grant – The Evening Standard Theatre Awards held at the Old Vic – Arrivals – London, United Kingdom – Sunday 22nd November 2015

The Withnail & I star did not experience happy Christmases growing up with his dad, so he goes all out to make sure his adult daughter Olivia and stepson Tom enjoy the festive season as much as possible.

Grant puts the Christmas tree up at the start of December every year and covers his home in decorations so it looks like a “b**ody Winter Wonderland”.

“It was so fraught when I was growing up because Christmas Day meant drunken mayhem on my father’s part by about eight o’clock at night,” he tells Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. “So I have probably hugely overcompensated. The Christmas tree goes up on December 1. I love it.”

High50.com – 15th December, 2015

Richard E. Grant at his stand at The Spirit of Christmas Fair

By Rosanna Dickinson

After an acting career spanning almost 30 years, Richard E. Grant, 56, has turned his hand to business, using his love of fragrance to create a unisex scent, Jack.

He has not only managed to get it stocked in Liberty, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols but has made a profit in its second year.

It’s quite an achievement for the actor, whose most well-known films include Withnail and I, Dracula, The Crimson Petal and The White and The Iron Lady. More recently he has had stints in Downton Abbey, Jekyll and Hyde and, so rumour has it, Game of Thrones next year. (And if you haven’t already, catch his hilarious turn as presenter of Sky Atlantic’s Hotel Secrets.)

Grant’s interest in scent started when he was 12, growing up in Swaziland, and has been a lifelong obsession. Having only launched Jack in 2014, we met him to find out how he has made a success of it so quickly.

What inspired you to create your own fragrance?

“When I was a boy I wanted to buy a perfume for someone I had a mad crush on but I couldn’t afford it on my pocket money. So I took all the gardenia and rose petals I could steal from my parent’s garden, boiled them with sugar water in jam jars, and buried them in the ground. Two weeks later they turned out to be stink bombs.

“Four and half decades later I was on holiday and a fellow house guest, Anya Hindmarch, saw me sniffing and smelling everything in sight. She said, ‘Are you going to do something about that?’ So I said, ‘What, psychiatrically?’ and she said, ‘No, are you going to make a perfume?’.

“I told her that had been my secret dream, so she put me in touch with some people in London. I then met Katherine Mitchell, who I’d been introduced to by perfumer Roja Dove, and things started moving.”

How did you develop the fragrance?

It was ‘nose’ Aliénor Massenet in Paris who expertly refined the formulas. Grant wanted to create a unisex fragrance and the ingredients he had in mind were lime, marijuana and mandarin as the top notes: “Marijuana because its earthy and peppery with a gorgeous, sexy smell. It was the ‘RAAWGH” [Grant does a sexual growl] that was missing.

“Massenet added something called Oud, which is an old Middle Eastern perfume and finally we had the ‘Va va voom’ factor.”

How long did it take to reach your dream smell?

“To work out the final formula of Jack Original, I used my friends to blind-test and take notes on every variation we had. I also worked with a team at Liberty, where I tested it and eventually got down to two favourites. One morning I mixed the two together and that was it, an epiphany that was exactly what I had dreamed of.”

How did you finance it?

“Everybody said don’t invest your own money and be prepared to loose it all. So I asked my accountant how much I have saved by not smoking or drinking for the past 40 years. He totted up a number and I said that is what I will invest in the company.

“[I said] I’m going to take a chance – I’m 57 and you only live once. It’s been my passion and dream.”

Grant admits, however, that he is useless with numbers and his daughter does the company’s accounting.

Jack launched exclusively at Liberty. How did you get them to stock it?

“We had a meeting at Liberty two years ago, and they were looking for a bespoke British unisex scent.

“It was like Dragon’s Den meets The Apprentice because we went in and all I had were drawings of what my packaging would look like, and that it should look quintessentially pillar box/London bus red with a Union Jack faded little bag, with a luggage label so that you can personalise it once the bag is opened.

“We had a six-minute pitch and they said they would order a huge number if the scent was good.”

Where can people buy the perfume?

Jack Perfume is sold at Liberty, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Fortnum and Mason, Bluebird, Petersham Nurseries and at my website Jack Perfume.

What are your plans to grow the business?

Jack Original became Liberty’s third best seller in 2014. It won a Power Perfume award from Cosmopolitan magazine, and Best New Independent British Fragrance at the perfume Oscars, ‘The Fifis’.

This has enabled Grant to launch the second scent in his range, called Jack Covent Garden, and next year Jack Piccadilly, which Grant says “has petrol, patchouli and bergamot and smells just like sex”.

Richard E. Grant’s top three tips for starting a business in your fifties

In the first year you get fleeced at every corner and you have to hold on to your courage and believe in your dream.

It’s 24/7. You have to be obsessive – which I am.

Triple check every single detail. People say one thing and what they actually mean and how they deliver are two separate entities. Never assume.

Irish Examiner – 12th December, 2015

The earliest version of Withnail And I is to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s on December 15.

Writer Bruce Robinson’s short novel, which he described as “70% autobiographical”, was written in 1969-70.

The author was living in a Camden Town house in which much of the debauched action takes place.

Paul McGann and Richard E Grant in 1987 film Withnail And I (Handmade Films)

The draft offered for sale includes extensive revisions in Bruce’s hand, along with a single leaf torn from a magazine which features a photograph of the author and his flatmates outside their Camden house in the late 1960s.

The 1987 film, which starred Paul McGann and Richard E Grant, had a protracted journey to the big screen.

In the 1980s, a copy of the unpublished novel reached executive producer Mody Schreiber.

Withnail And I draft (Sotheby’s/Bruce Robinson)

He commissioned Bruce to adapt it for the screen and The Beatles’ George Harrison read the script on a transatlantic crossing.

His company, Handmade Films, formed to fund Monty Python’s Life Of Brian, ended up producing the comedy which was directed by its writer.

Withnail And I has become a much-loved and oft-quoted favourite.

Set at the end of the 1960s, it tells the tale of two out-of-work actors, Withnail (African-born Richard) and ‘I’ (Doctor Who star, Paul), who exist on a diet of booze, drugs and cigarettes in their revolting Camden flat.

Bruce’s housemates – including Vivian MacKerrell, who was famously the basis for Withnail, and David Dundas, who wrote the film’s music – were still drama students at the nearby Central School of Speech and Drama at the time they were living together.

The draft for Withnail And I is estimated at between £4,000-6,000 and is offered as part of Sotheby’s sale of English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations.

The Resident – 11th December, 2015

Richard E Grant on life in the movies, his early days in Notting Hill and why he’ll be spending Christmas with Paddington Bear

I once read a refreshingly-honest interview where you said that people often assumed you had scripts flooding through the letterbox, when in reality you were struggling for the parts you wanted. Have things changed?
Apart from a few leading roles, my career is made up of supporting character roles which has afforded me a great variety of work which I am very grateful for.

What film/TV part would you have killed (or at least nudged someone out of the way) for?
Send a stamped addressed envelope for the list! No matter what age you are, there is always a shortlist of contenders going for the same role, and we all know each other.

There seems to be a greater awareness now of the sexist attitudes faced by actresses when it comes to ageing. How do you find men in the industry are treated in that regard?
Female actors have a much tougher time of it. Statistically there are far more parts for men of all ages than there are for women. The pressure to stay young and beautiful doesn’t apply to men in the same way.

‘My favourite line in Withnail & I? “He’s so mauve”‘

British TV is going through a very exciting time at the moment – what do you tend to watch?
I love box-set binges. I’m addicted to Peaky Blinders, the Great British Bake Off, Downton Abbey, Dr Foster and The Apprentice.

Withnail & I director Bruce Robinson’s book on Jack the Ripper came out recently. What do you think of his detective work – have you read it yet?
It’s a riveting read and vituperative attack on the Victorian Establishment written with his trademark bilious wit.

You’re narrating Paddington’s Christmas Concert at the Cadogan Hall this month, what do you like about the character?
I identified with him as I emigrated from Africa three decades ago and landed in London with one suitcase and lived just off Portobello Road. He is forever an ‘outsider’ who became an ‘insider’.

You’ll be narrating alongside Simon Callow, how are you feeling about it?
I’m looking forward to finally working with Simon as our paths have crossed socially through the years. He has a very distinct style which will doubtless inform his narration.

What’s Christmas like in your household?
Full on. A 12ft tree goes up on the first of December, we cram every room with decorations, fairy lights around the garden and up the trees and a kitchen crammed with food, topped off by a party for my friends. You can never have enough plum pudding.

Richard will be narrating at Paddington Bear’s Christmas Concert

In your early days in London, you lived in Notting Hill, what are your memories of the area?
I rented a bedsit in Blenheim Crescent for £30 a week for two years in 1982. I saw every movie I could at the Electric Cinema as it was still a cheap bughouse; buying vegetables in Portobello Market at the end of the day was affordable too.

Do you ever find your way back to Notting Hill?
I have lots of friends living there and I’ve been having lunch at Mediterraneo restaurant every Saturday ever since it opened. I’ve been a regular Friday visitor of the antiques market on Portobello and Golborne road too as I am an inveterate collector. My best find was a Venetian mirror with a painted pierrot in the middle of the glass.

What childhood book stands out in your memory the most?
Alice in Wonderland. My all-time favourite and I read it once a year –idiosyncratically English, hilarious and eccentric by turn.

I’m sorry to ask this but we have to know – what’s your favourite Withnail & I line?
‘He’s so mauve’.

Paddington Bear’s First Concert with narration from Richard E. Grant and Simon Callow will take place at Cadogan Hall Sunday 20 Dec, 2.30pm and 5.30pm, tickets £25-£30, 020 7730 4500; cadoganhall.com

The Irish Independent – 11th December, 2015

Film legends Richard E. Grant, Aidan Gillen, Fiona Shaw and Jack Reynor to share their acting tips in new Irish series.

By Donal Corkery

Respected actors including Richard E. Grant, Aidan Gillen, Fiona Shaw and Jack Reynor will share their tips on screen acting for aspiring young actors and filmmakers.

The experienced film actors will chat about techniques including auditions, self taping, showreels, and they’ll also talk about headshots, nerves and their shared experiences from working at the very top of the film and TV industry.

The actors feature in a new Dublin-based series called “Bow Street Meets”.

Bow Street is a creative hub for Filmmakers and Actors in the Jameson Building in Smithfield, which has facilities including multiple studios, cinema, state of the art casting studio, self taping and green screen studios, and canteen.

You can watch REG’s video below, with more of the first series of interviews to be found at http://www.bowstreetmeets.com/