Hugh Grant’s best roles: from rom-com king to Paddington’s tormentor, as he becomes an Oompa Loompa

He’s always the first to joke that he spent the best part of his career re-hashing the same character ad infinitum (Charming? Yes. Posh? Yes. Prone to turning the simplest of sentences into a symphony of ‘erms’ and ‘umms’? Full house) but Hugh Grant has much greater range than he gets credit for.

From his knack for playing villains that are by turns charming and creepy to his second act as one of our most compelling character actors, there’s more to his filmography than his Nineties reign as the floppy-haired, tongue-tied prince of rom-coms – not that we’d ever knock his Richard Curtis collaborations, of course.

Nevertheless, fans around the world were surprised, amused and thrilled to see Grant as an Oompa Loompa in the first look of the Timothée Chalamet-starring Charlie and the Chocolate Factory update, Wonka.

“I am so unbelievably ready for Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa,” said Caitlin Moran. “Can’t stop thinking about Hugh Grant‘s reveal in the Wonka trailer,” commented another bemused spectator on Twitter.

I am so unbelievably ready for Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa pic.twitter.com/EuRMh9M8gu

— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) July 12, 2023

oompa loompa hugh grant's got moves tbf... #wonka #wonkamovie pic.twitter.com/xxUkbMFjzH

— BBC Radio 1 (@BBCR1) July 12, 2023

The casting hasn’t gone without backlash, however, as several actors with dwarfism have argued that the role should have been given to someone with dwarfism. “A lot of actors [with dwarfism] feel like we are being pushed out of the industry we love,” said actor George Coppen to the BBC.

With just a few months left to go until Wonka is released in cinemas, it’s now the perfect time to reassess Grant’s greatest hits, from period dramas to Paddington 2. Is it still raining? We hadn’t noticed...

10. Music and Lyrics

As past-it Eighties pop icon Alex Fletcher, a man who wears a necklace to show he’s Seen Some Things, Hugh Grant worked magic on a rom-com that would have otherwise been fairly forgettable. Struggling to compose a song for a young pop princess, he accidentally discovers that the woman who waters his plants (very much a pre-fourth wave feminism female character) is a lyrical genius. It’s worth a watch alone for scenes of Grant in Duran Duran/Spandau pastiche PoP!, a sign that Grant was aching to have more fun.

9. Love Actually

The sexual politics of Love Actually’s workplace romances don’t stand up to scrutiny in 2023, but Grant’s dad-dancing Prime Minister is still the best leader we never had. His character is pure political fan-fiction from Richard Curtis (telling the POTUS to get lost by invoking the power of David Beckham’s right foot at a press conference? Seems reasonable) but there’s no one we’d rather see sashaying through the corridors of 10 Downing Street.

8. Florence Foster Jenkins

In Stephen Frears’ 2016 biopic of tone-deaf opera singer Florence Foster Jenkins, Grant graduated with style from the frothy rom-com roles that he had long outgrown. Starring opposite Meryl Streep, he played Jenkins’ patient partner St Clair Bayfield with touching tenderness, and picked up a Bafta and Golden Globe nomination for his work. Behold: Hugh 2.0 had arrived.

7. A Very English Scandal

It’s the prestige role that cranked the Hugh-naissance up a gear. Grant lets his leading man charisma fester into something more menacing in this compelling portrait of disgraced Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe, who ended up on trial for conspiracy to murder his former lover (Ben Whishaw). A punchy riposte to those ‘Hugh can’t act’ detractors.

6. About a Boy

This 2002 adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel about a man-child who wants to shag single mums and buy expensive gadgets marked a huge turning point for Grant: the end of his trademark floppy hair. It was still a rom-com, except this time about a man you definitely don’t want to go out with, but Grant’s performance as Will was a perceptive study of masculinity under self-inflicted siege.

5. Sense and Sensibility

Poor old Edward Ferrars – he’s definitely one of the least dashing love interests in Jane Austen’s catalogue of romantic heroes, but Grant’s Regency spin on his tongue-tied rom-com schtick is a lovely addition to Emma Thompson’s superlative Sense and Sensibility adaptation. The proposal scene, with Grant absent-mindedly clutching a porcelain sheep while stammering out his mild-mannered declaration of love, is a real tearjerker.

4. Bridget Jones’s Diary

Bunny outfits, mini-breaks and emails that would make a post-MeToo HR department have kittens: this was Grant turning the romantic hero trope on its head. As Bridget Jones’s charming, louche boss Daniel Cleaver, Grant turned to the dark side – but he took you out to dinner first, of course. “F*** me, I love Keats,” he cried. And f*** us, we love Cleave.

3. Four Weddings And A Funeral

Curtis very nearly vetoed casting Grant as Four Weddings’ bumbling hero Charles (he feared the actor was too good looking to believably stumble his way through the character’s strangulated declarations of love). Thank goodness he changed his mind. This career-making performance was so perfect, Grant spent most of the next decade being asked to deliver it over and over again.

2. Paddington 2

Bow down to the new golden age of Hugh: his turn as Phoenix Buchanan, washed-up thesp, master of disguise and tormentor of small bears, is one of his all-time greats. Grant himself described it as “the best film I’ve ever been in” - and he is the best thing in it. It cemented his reinvention as one of our finest character actors, but he also wears a nun’s habit and tap-dances in prison – reasons enough to watch it, quite frankly.

1. Notting Hill

We’re just Hugh Grant fans, standing on Portobello Road, banging on about how perfect this performance is. Notting Hill sees a floppy-haired Grant at the apex of his rom-com powers, never to be surpassed. Who else could credibly charm a Hollywood megastar (Julia Roberts, also on fine form) into swapping LA for W11 with bad jokes, a copy of Horse and Hound and the music of Ronan Keating? Nobody, that’s who.