Hugh Grant & Nicholas Hoult Reunite 21 Years After 'About a Boy'

But this is what's so sinister,

'cause you're not remotely weird anymore.

I am, I'm a freak, yeah. Are you?

Give me three freakish things about you.

Hello. Well.

Let's pretend. Okay.

Good to see you.

That we've only just seen each other,

instead of having a chat three seconds ago.

Never. Yeah.

Since I last saw you.

[jazzy music]

I was thinking about this actually on the way here.

I was like, oh, when was the first time we met?

And it must've been the screen test for About a Boy.

Yeah, maybe baby.

Oh. [laughs]

Maybe baby?

That was what it was?

That's the sort of thing I say.

It's just been a while since you called me baby.

Which I don't actually remember the screen test at all.

I think when I'm in like high stress scenarios,

I think I kind of just panic,

and don't take in anything of what's happening.

So I don't have any recollection of it apart from,

I know that I had to wear a school uniform.

But I didn't go to a school that had uniforms at the time.

So I like borrowed like my mom's old like boat shoes.

But we like painted them with a marker, black.

And then the...

Which would've been perfect for the character.

What do you remember, anything else?

I don't remember your audition very well.

I just remember we all thought, oh great, great,

we've got him, we've got him.

He's brilliant.

The things I remember most about About a Boy

was not really anything to do with making the film.

It was the cricket match.

Oh, at the end, yeah, yeah.

How is your cricket? Terrible.

Terrible. I remember that.

But I remember, yeah, I'm never good at cricket.

And I remember once getting in, not getting in trouble,

but I remember I was a kid so I was like,

I cared about doing the acting,

but also there was like a stage next to the one

that we were filming on that was open with nothing in it.

And we'd run there in between shots.

And I'd go and play cricket with some of the crew.

And then I came back one time and I was like dripping sweat.

And everyone was like, we're ready to shoot,

and now this kid's bright red, dripping sweat.

And we gotta dry his hair and everything.

And I was like, Oh no.

I've made a mistake, I shouldn't have done that.

We all hated you for that. Yeah.

I hated myself.

I still-- And I punched you.

This is more this, this chat is more about me

saying these things that I'm embarrassed,

and still think daily about.

[both laughing]

Are you good?

I don't know now.

What was that time like in your life when we filmed that?

I have no memory at all.

[both laughing]

I don't know, I reckon it was,

I tell you what was happening.

I'd done all those, you know, rom-coms.

But for About a Boy, I felt,

Oh, everyone's gonna see a whole new side of me.

I cut that ghastly hair off.

And I'm doing an accent in that film.

So I feel less, I felt it was a, it was something new.

What accent were you doing?

Well, I recall being,

he was slightly kind of London.

A bit sort of North London.

Okay, Marcus, you know.

[Nicholas] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He wasn't little Lord Boshington

that I'd been doing up till then.

[both laughing]

Why would you want your mum

to go out with someone like me?

I don't think you're too bad.

I mean, you told lies,

but apart from that you seem okay.

I remember the story of that, About a Boy.

It had been bought by some other people

and they were gonna make it into a film.

And I put my little hand up, 'cause I loved the book.

And they said, Sorry, we don't really like you.

And then, thrillingly, they lost the rights to the book.

And it went to Robert De Niro, and his company.

And they said, We like you very much.

And that was nice.

And we set it up there.

I didn't know any of that.

Yeah, at the last moment it all,

all the money fell through.

It was gonna be made by New Line.

At the last moment, I don't know,

they decided they didn't wanna make it.

And so we shopped it round.

Everyone wanted to make it,

including working title, and that's how we did it.

Right, right, right. And then we had to find you.

We just needed the right weirdo.

[Nicholas laughing]

And there you were.

[Nicholas] Perfect little weirdo.

But this is what's so sinister,

'cause you're not remotely weird anymore.

I am, I'm a freak, yeah. Are you?

Give me three freakish things about you.

Three freakish things.

I don't think you're freaky at all.

And you're...

[Nicholas laughing]

As far as I can make out.

Test me here right now.

How many kids have you got?

Five. Five?

Yeah. What's the ages?

13 down to six. Oh, okay.

[Hugh] That's partly why I look knackered.

I have a 6-year-old.

And I understand, yeah, why you feel knackered.

[Hugh] Yeah.

I was telling you just before, when I haven't seen you,

but I was telling you just before this,

I couldn't move my neck for the last three days

'cause they were jumping on my back

whilst I was screaming, You can't hurt me.

And then I woke up the day after,

and I couldn't move, and I couldn't swallow.

And my neck was in, yeah, sheer agony.

So I get what parenting is, I think, now.

Just slowly being broken apart.

Are you quite good?

As a dad? Yeah.

Yeah, I think I am.

Are you?

Enchanting is the only word.

[Nicholas laughing] Enchanting.

[Nicholas] That's the word they would use?

They couldn't use any other.

On the back of About a Boy, which did well.

People liked it. They did, yeah.

That was lovely. Yeah.

Were you immediately scooped up into other things?

I think you were.

No and yes.

There's that weird period where it was like

there's the success of that film,

and that gave me like a great start.

But then there was also, I was very aware as a kid,

everyone talking about the fact that child actors

don't make it as adult actors, very frequently.

And that was something that,

I'm not as dumb as I might appear,

and I was very attuned to that.

So it was like this weird part of me

where I was like, Oh, I wanna keep doing this.

I like this.

But there weren't like tons of opportunities.

And there was also this awareness of me of being like,

Hmm, maybe this isn't gonna work out.

Which was quite a strange feeling to take on that young.

But, this isn't completely about how it influenced my life,

but I think it did influence me quite a lot in terms of

the person I am, and the actor I am sometimes.

Because I, and I didn't notice I was doing this,

I wasn't consciously doing it,

but I did this TV show called The Great

where I played the emperor.

[Hugh] Yeah, yeah, you were marvelous.

Did you ever think that I behaved and spoke--

I read reviews that said you did,

but I don't see that at all.

I wasn't consciously doing it,

but I think occasionally there was little things.

Because it was such an influential part of my life,

working with you, at that point,

and looking up to you and what you did, and that experience.

I think there are little triggers

that occasionally, it's not an impression of you,

but I think there are little things occasionally

that are almost how I,

my interpretation of how you would do it.

Does that make sense?

'Cause you're so dry, and funny, and perfect

at those sorts, that sort of comedy.

So dry.

Well it's nice for you to say that.

[Nicholas] So dry.

I did watch some of Peter, or The Great,

or whatever it was called.

And I didn't see any of it.

Catherine the Great, so.

You can't call it Peter the Great, it's about her.

It's her story.

I was Peter the Great. That was me.

Yeah, well I was actually Peter III.

Yeah, you were his son, oh whatever.

[both laughing]

Anyway, you were marvelous.

But it's funny how, yeah,

early influences can seep into you, as an actor,

and then reemerge when you least expect them.

You don't even know you're doing it.

No, I didn't. My first triumph

as an actor was imitating our chemistry teacher,

Mr. Hammond, at school.

He always had his hands deep in his pocket.

And he'd say, You boys need to come and have a shower.

And he has frequently, his delivery,

I find it sometimes, when I'm struggling with a role,

I suddenly realize,

I see I'm creeping into Mr. Hammond again.

It's like a possession.

Yeah, that's weird how it comes back like that.

Completely unrelated, but I saw Toni Collette recently.

Well I worked with Toni, and then,

but was speaking to her recently.

We were doing some press for a movie.

And she told me that her karaoke song

is Killing Me Softly.

Oh.

But she was like, Oh no,

the cool version, the Fugees's version.

I was like, I think that's the version

that we were doing in the film.

♪ Killing me softly with his song ♪

♪ Killing me softly ♪

Who the hell is that?

You did the one time, two time, and all that, right?

When you were singing and playing the guitar.

What does one time mean?

That's what they do in the song.

What do you mean?

I'm not gonna sing it.

No, go on, sing it. No.

It's very touching and marvelous, that end scene.

Yeah. Which we cooked,

I cooked it up with the Weitz's,

'cause that's of course not the ending of the book.

[Nicholas] The singing, or like?

[Hugh] The whole concert is invented.

[Nicholas] Oh really?

How's your golf?

Golf is...

I'm a 16 handicap, how about you?

That's very poor and disappointing.

Well no, but this is my thing.

So Hugh got me my first lessons

and my first set of clubs as a wrap gift

from About a Boy.

Do you remember that? Yeah.

And you signed the golf bag actually, as well.

[Hugh] Charming.

I can't remember what you wrote.

I think it was just your name, you signed your name.

So I've a signed Hugh Grant golf bag.

It's better than the wrap present

I gave to my son on The Undoing,

which was was a box of cigars.

His mother was furious.

How old was he?

11.

[Nicholas laughing]

So now, three films.

Three films.

Have you--

Well I think you, if you want to get a prize this year,

you have to choose one.

It's absurd.

I'm not gonna choose.

I went to see Heretic at the cinema.

Well they did send me the one where you're the racist.

And you were brilliant and I loved it.

You watched that one? Yeah, I did.

Oh great, thanks.

[Hugh] Absolute top film.

Oh thanks, yeah, yeah, I'm proud of that one.

I think it's a good film.

I would vote for you for that.

You're marvelous.

I would vote for you.

And also, I tell you what's annoying,

I don't really like anyone being good in anything.

I just feel jealous instead of pleasure.

But you, your American accent's so good now.

Oh yeah, yeah.

It's got a lot better.

'Cause you live here, maybe that helps.

And also, I found recordings of Bob Matthews,

the character that I was playing.

So I could kind of locate

the exact sounds he was making.

I thought that was brilliant.

I thought, I watched the trailer of Nosferatu.

It's good, yeah.

It's filmy, really filmy.

There is a devil in this world and I have met him.

[dramatic music]

But you could never please me as he could.

It's like so cinematic.

How it looks, the sound of it.

How it, Robert and his whole team are like masters.

I feel like that movie--

Why did she say to you at one point,

You could never satisfy me like him?

Oh, yeah.

There's this love triangle,

and she's suddenly horrible to him in that moment.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a bit.

That was a good touch.

What do you think is a better horror film,

Nosferatu or Heretic?

They're very different.

But I liked Heretic a lot.

And you were brilliant in it.

Very charming and funny, as always.

[Hugh] Well.

Well how did it come about?

What were you thinking going into it?

Well, Heretic...

With the religious aspects?

Two lovely weirdos from Iowa.

Yeah. Wrote and directed it.

And I just thought, I thought it was quite brave.

'cause it's so talky.

It breaks all those rules, you know,

about film having to have pithy, economical dialogue,

and be in lots of different locations.

'Cause it's really only one house.

And I thought, that's a challenge.

But I did think I could have some fun with him being,

making him into groovy professor.

I won't keep you if you wish to leave.

But I want you to choose which door

to go through based on your faith.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I felt like

the thing about Heretic was the fun

that you were having playing away from

the tone of a horror movie. Exactly.

In some ways, right?

Exactly.

I thought if he thinks he's fun,

and he's quite jokey, then his real aims,

his diabolical aims, and what's coming,

will be all the more unexpected and ghastly.

Well, not unexpected, but ghastly.

That's how the tension builds in a nice way.

And you get some good laughs.

There's a few laughs.

I agree, there's a few laughs.

There's not really too many laughs in Nosferatu,

I wouldn't say.

Tone-wise it's very specific

because it's that gothic horror.

And Robert Eggers is such a master

of like creating worlds and tension.

For him, performance-wise,

it was all about honesty and authenticity.

But then also, he would give us lots of movies

to watch performance-wise,

kind of the Soviet cinema and Bergman movies.

And he hates when actors move their eyebrows.

So there was like specific things in terms of performance

that he'd be like, this is kind of keeps you all in.

That moves their eyebrows.

Yeah. Christ.

I will never work with him then.

I can't keep my face still for two secones.

The eyebrows ones is sometimes tricky.

Is it true Clint Eastwood only does one take?

Pretty much, yeah, yeah.

[Hugh] And then goes to play golf?

One take, maybe two.

And he's like, doesn't say actual cut,

he's just like, Whenever you're ready.

I love that. Go, stop.

I have a bad Pavlovian reaction to action.

You do? Oh, awful.

Why, what does it do?

Oh, the worst words for me are turning over, or rolling.

Oh, I can't bear it.

I seize up immediately.

Action is awful.

Stephen Frears has a very bad action habit.

Really? Yeah.

He goes, And one, two, three, action!

[Nicholas laughing]

Cut, cut, cut.

Stephen, this is an intimate little scene

between two people, and that's just terrifying.

So don't, don't, don't, don't.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

Okay, right, off we go again.

1, 2, 3, action!

[Nicholas laughing]

He can't stop.

Anyway, I find always very frightening.

So I would've loved a Clint...

No, you'd appreciate how he works.

'Cause also sometimes if you're just hanging out

and sitting there, he'll just start.

You won't even notice

that he's started the camera's rolling.

And like, it's all very calm and relaxed.

And he's a very easy come easy go guy.

Which I think is what makes him special as a filmmaker.

It's that ability to kind of trust the process,

but also the audience,

where he doesn't try and force anything.

You know, it's just very simple.

Yeah, God. This is it.

And also, because the older I get,

or as the years roll by with filming,

keeping everyone calm is 90% of the battle.

Particularly actors, I think.

Just keep 'em calm, keep 'em loose.

Funnily enough, I noticed that I,

I've had a lot of high maintenance girlfriends in the past

who used to get photographed

by very famous fashion photographers.

And you notice the common denominator in the really famous

fashion photographers was how easy the whole thing was.

You know, there would be Patrick Demarchelier.

Oh it's nice when you sit there, it's fine.

You know, not on the set or anything.

He'd just come and snap, snap, snap.

Very calm, lovely.

Do you think you're a calming presence?

I feel like you... [laughs]

No, but on set, do you think like.

I feel like...

Did I calm you on About a Boy?

I don't remember.

You probably did.

[Hugh] I was quite calm on that one.

But I feel like you care.

I remember you caring and wanting to do maybe more takes.

And try things and like...

I wouldn't say, what I'm thinking of is neurotic,

but I wouldn't say neurotic.

I would say like that you just care

and you want it to be good.

You see, in those days, I think, I met,

it was a big change for me

when I realized, it's a mistake, I think,

for film actors to think, This is how I'm going to do it.

I was excellent doing it in my trailer just now,

or in the bathroom last night.

And I must get that one when we roll camera.

That's a huge mistake.

And I did that for years.

And I think it's much better to have some vague idea

of what the scene's about, and know the lines.

And then completely make it up when the camera rolls.

[Nicholas] Yeah, yeah.

[Hugh] That was a big change for me.

That was something surprisingly

that Clint Eastwood was kind of similarly-minded with,

where he, I remember one time him walking by me on set

and he said, What are you thinking about the scene,

or what are you thinking?

And I said, Absolutely nothing.

And he said, That's my kind of actor.

Walked off, that was it.

And I was like, perfect, and there we go.

Let's roll it.

So there is something about that, I think.

Well yeah.

I have a film of Hugh's

that I think is underappreciated.

Mickey Blue Eyes.

Oh, I love people who love Mickey Blue Eyes.

I love that movie so much.

[Hugh] It's not perfect.

[Nicholas] I think that's an underappreciated one

from your catalog.

Mobsters in New York still come up to me

and like that film. Do they, really?

Well we worked with a lot of mobsters on,

when we made the film.

They were great.

They could do anything.

We had a man called Rocky Sausage.

[both laughing]

'Cause he's, you know, he used to be a butcher or whatever.

And he was our liaison man with the mob.

And he was just brilliant.

If you're filming on the streets of Manhattan,

and there was a problem

with helicopters ruining the soundtrack.

He'd say, Gimme the phone.

And he'd take the phone and he'd call JFK the,

you know, control tower.

No helicopters, all gone.

I like to imagine them picking up the phone

at the other end of being like,

Rocky Sausage is on the phone again.

[Hugh] They were brilliant.

Do you have any cool nicknames like that?

Do you have a Rocky Sausage?

I wish, I wish, that would be a good one.

I had to...

And my girlfriend at the time,

she was so good with the mob.

She was producing the film.

And she was brilliant with these beautifully dressed,

quite high powered mobsters.

She used to sit on their knee and say,

Now tell me where you get your nails done,

'cause they're so much better than mine.

[Nicholas laughing]

They loved her.

That's a classic film.

I love that one.

Yeah, what do you get stopped for then?

X-Men.

Not too much X-Men,

because I was mostly in like

big blue furry prosthetics for that.

[Hugh] True, true.

I don't really know if I get stopped that much.

I think normally it's mistaken

for somebody else if someone's stopping me.

Or thinking that I went to school with them or something.

And then me being like, No, I don't think so.

Sorry.

Are you nice when you're stopped

and someone says, Can I have a selfie?

I am, I think I'm nice.

I think so.

Because I'm like, you know what,

well this is 10 seconds outta my day.

And if it makes their day better,

even if they think I'm someone else, [laughs]

then that's fine.

No skin off my back most of the time.

Ever tell you about the man,

I stopped for petrol somewhere in Long Island.

And the guy who's, I was paying, said, You know what?

You look like that Hugh Grant.

No offense.

[all laughing]

None taken? A lot taken.

[Nicholas laughing]

Let's do this again. [Hugh laughing]

Are you free next week, maybe, for another recap?

[soft music]