Notting Hill to Bridget Jones’s Diary, revisit Hugh Grant’s Hollywood career.

“I find it hard to understand why Scorsese has never called. You know, given the natural menace I bring to the screen.” — Hugh

HE SEEMS like the quintessential upper-class Brit. But

Hugh John Mungo Grant was born to what he calls “impoverished gentlefolk” — a teacher mom and carpet-salesman dad. Working on a master’s degree in art history, he fell into his career. “I spent time posing and going to bad parties, [so] they asked me to play a party-going poser” in a student film. After

a few more roles and the hit Four Weddings and a Funeral, his good looks, charm and wit seemed to fill a void left by that other Grant — Cary (no relation). “I don’t see any similarity,” he says jokingly, “except that I’m told he used to wear ladies’ underwear, which I also do.” However, Hugh, who turned 57 on Sept. 9, has a part he is truly taking seriously — becoming a father of four, from two relationships in the past four years. As he says, parenthood

“made me much nicer…. It is life-changing. I recommend it.”

1

1985 WAR IS HELL One of his first breaks was playing a World War II pilot in the miniseries Jenny’s War. “It was a stinker,” he says. “I was supposed to be this stubbly, hunky flier and [looked] about 12.”

2

1990 GETTING FRIENDLY He began dating model and actress Elizabeth Hurley in 1987. “[Then] we shared a flat for four years. By the end of that time we were at each other’s throats,” Hugh says of the relationship, which ended in 2000. “The funny thing is, it did [work out]. The sex bit probably fizzled out, but now she’s my absolute best friend.”

3

1994 FOUR PLAY Hugh says his turn in the smash Four Weddings and a Funeral with Andie MacDowell almost didn’t happen. The director “did everything in his power to stop me from getting the part” after the audition “slightly sickened” him. So how did he get it? “I don’t think they could find anyone else!”

4

1995 GOOD SENSE He was wary of being typecast in “posh parts” like in Sense and Sensibility, with Emma Thompson. The filmmakers had to offer “something very special. I think Emma’s script is miles better than [Jane Austen’s] book and much more amusing.”

5

1995 COP TO IT

“People thought I was this nice character I played in [Four Weddings],” says Hugh, reflecting on his notorious arrest for solicitation. “And so I suppose the contrast between that person and this seedy behavior was juicy stuff.” Yet it didn’t hurt his career. “As long as you make them money, they don’t care what you get up to.”

6

1999 MOUTH TO MOUTH Ever the joker, Hugh says it was tough to kiss his Notting Hill co-star Julia Roberts because of her large mouth. “[I] was aware of a faint echo,” he quips, but adds that “she was great, and very, very beautiful.”

7

2001 ME & MS. JONES What does Hugh really think of his Bridget Jones’s Diary co-star Renée Zellweger? She’s “genuinely lovely [and] delightful, also far from sane,” he joked.

8

2002 BOY WONDER Hugh says he saw a parallel with his layabout lad in About a Boy. “I’m not quite as extreme a case, but I have spent a lot of time being shallow in terms of life goals and relationships.”

9

2003 LABOR OF LOVE While Love Actually was a huge hit, Hugh actually didn’t love a big scene that required him to dance. “I dreaded [it] more than having my teeth extracted…. Throughout my life, whenever I thought I’m dancing well, I’m not.”

10

2016 GAME ON “I imagined working with [Meryl Streep in Florence Foster Jenkins] would be terrifying, and, indeed, it was,” he says. “She is a genius, but also unbelievably dedicated. I had to raise my game.”