Hugh Grant: ‘I Was Completely Marooned’ in Hollywood Before ‘Cloud Atlas’ Saved My Career

Samantha Bergeson
·2 min read
3

Hugh Grant credits “Cloud Atlas” for putting his world back on track. The actor told Vanity Fair that before starring in the 2012 film from the Wachowski siblings, his career had hit a wall.

“I was completely marooned,” Grant said of his career after box-office flop “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” in 2009. “The Wachowskis offered me just a few small little parts in ‘Cloud Atlas,’ and to be honest, I was probably only offered that because some of their international distributors had said, ‘We need some more recognizable names. Cram someone recognizable in here.'”

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Grant continued, “They would’ve thought, ‘Oh, we don’t really want Hugh Grant, but we’ll give him some tiny parts.’ They will deny that but I think it’s partly what happened.”

Tiny parts, maybe, but not a tiny workload: Grant played six different roles in the sweeping novel adaptation, including one that he personally added to the script: that of Ben Whishaw’s onscreen husband. The duo later reunited for “A Very English Scandal.”

Grant explained how “Cloud Atlas” reinvigorated his love of character acting, especially given how many characters he got to transform into for the film.

“I thought, Oh yeah, I used to really enjoy doing characters — in fact, I almost used to enjoy acting,” Grant said. “I started out doing silly voices, odd people, making people laugh at university, and then doing this comedy show in London. It was doing characters. Then through sheer chance, maybe because of the way I looked, I got drawn into the leading romantic hero. It went fine, but it’s not what I think I’m best at — partly because it’s less fun.”

After “Cloud Atlas,” Grant said that his acting offers “completely changed.” His work on “Cloud Atlas” inspired directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods to cast Grant in “Heretic” more than 10 years later.

Grant previously told Yahoo! UK that “Cloud Atlas” is an under-appreciated epic film.

“I thought [‘Cloud Atlas’] was amazing,” he said in 2014. “[The Wachowskis] are the bravest film-makers in the world, and I think it’s an amazing film…it’s frustrating to me. Every time I’ve done something outside the genre of light comedy, the film fails to find an audience at the box office. And, sadly, ‘Cloud Atlas’ never really found the audience it deserved.”

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