HUGH GRANT

is Forge Fitzwilliam the Rogue

How did the scale of Honour Among Thieves compare to Cloud Atlas and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

They were expensive, but this was probably double that cost. I remember making films for Warners or whatever, romantic comedies, and you thought it was quite a lot of pressure. But with things on this scale, we think, ‘Christ, they can’t fail, not at this cost.’ But it was fun. You get very well treated. And at my age, I quite liked being well treated.

You’ve described the directors as seeming British...

They’re incredibly dry. They take the piss out of themselves the whole time, and they take the piss out of their film. They’re very irreverent about the whole process. And not at all pious. There is a kind of sanctimony that’s slightly crept into our industry and they’re pretty immune to that.

How was it working with the puppets and green screen?

I had mainly humans to deal with. I had a few puppets upstaging me in the background, which I found enraging; I complained bitterly about them. And dragon things. Ridiculous.

Do you have any good anecdotes from D&D?

I had a couple of tantrums. I did a Christian Bale, I lost my temper with a woman in my eyeline on day one. I assumed she was some executive from the studio who should have known better. Then it turns out, she was an extremely nice local woman, Northern Irish, who was the chaperone of the young girl. Terrible. A lot of grovelling.

It feels like the film roles you’ve played recently have more and more whimsy about them…

It’s happened really by default. I’m too old and ugly to be a leading man any more. And to be honest, it’s a fantastic relief. It never suited me. I never thought I was very good at that. If I ever had any ability in this area, it was doing silly characters. That’s where I sort of began in the ’80s, doing sketch comedy and silly voices. So it was nice to be back where I began.