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Pablo Honey

Pablo Honey is the debut studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 22 February 1993 in the UK by Parlophone and on 20 April 1993 in the US by Capitol Records. It was produced by Sean Slade, Paul Q. Kolderie and Radiohead's co-manager Chris Hufford.

Radiohead formed in 1985 at Abingdon School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and signed a recording contract with EMI in 1991. Their debut EP, Drill (1992), achieved little success. Radiohead's management targeted the American market and chose American producers for their debut album. Pablo Honey was recorded in three weeks at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire in 1992. The recording was hampered by Radiohead's lack of studio experience.

The singles "Creep", "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Stop Whispering" initially made little impact. However, "Creep" gradually gained international radio play, reaching number seven on the UK Singles Chart after it was reissued in 1993. Radiohead embarked on an aggressive promotional tour in the US supporting Belly and PJ Harvey, followed by a European tour supporting James. In May 1995, a live video, Live at the Astoria (1995), was released on VHS.

Pablo Honey reached number 22 on the UK Albums Chart. It was certified gold in the UK in 1994 and triple platinum in 2013. In the US, it was certified platinum in 1995. Pablo Honey received generally favourable reviews, but some found it underdeveloped or derivative. Though it is less acclaimed than Radiohead's later work, some retrospective reviews have been positive and it has appeared in lists of the greatest albums. The members of Radiohead have criticised it, citing weaker songwriting and their studio inexperience. "Creep" remains Radiohead's most successful single.

Background
The members of Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. In 1985, they formed, the name referring to their usual rehearsal day in the school's music room. They recorded demo tapes, including a cassette unofficially titled Manic Hedgehog, which featured versions of the future Pablo Honey tracks "You", "I Can't" and "Thinking About You".

One demo attracted the attention of a local producer, Chris Hufford. He and his business partner, Bryce Edge, became the band's managers after attending a concert at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford. In late 1991, On a Friday signed a six-album recording contract with EMI and changed their name at EMI's request. Their name was taken from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories.

Radiohead released their debut EP, Drill, in 1992. It was produced by Hufford in his studio, Courtyard Studios, in Oxfordshire. It reached number 101 on the UK Singles Chart; the Guardian later described it as an "inauspicious start" that drew little attention. Hufford said producing the EP himself was a mistake, as it created a conflict of interest and generated friction in the studio. He and Edge resolved to find different producers for Radiohead's next recording. As independent labels dominated the indie charts in the UK, and EMI was a major label, Hufford and Edge planned to have Radiohead use American producers and tour aggressively in America, then return to build a following in the UK. They considered hiring Steve Albini, but EMI felt he was too risky; he had not yet worked with major acts such as Nirvana.

Around this time, the American producers Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, who had worked with bands including the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr, were in the UK looking for work. The EMI A&R director, Nick Gatfield, gave them a selection of acts to consider. They agreed to produce Radiohead after he played them "Stop Whispering". Kolderie was particularly impressed by Thom Yorke's vocals. Upon meeting the band, Kolderie was struck by their youth, but also their unity and closeness. He described "a seriousness of purpose and a seriousness of trying to create music that was a little different". He was initially more impressed by Hufford and Edge than by Radiohead, calling them "crafty mothers ... I don't think I've ever met two guys who had more of a plan."

Recording
Radiohead recorded Pablo Honey at Chipping Norton Studios in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. They first attempted to record two songs that EMI was considering for Radiohead's debut single, "Inside My Head" and "Lurgee". They made little progress; Kolderie described Radiohead as "desperately inexperienced", and neither they nor the producers liked the choice of songs. Kolderie said "Inside My Head" was "not very melodic" and lacked the power of Radiohead's other songs. Hufford described the results as "overblown bombastic rock".

During rehearsals, Radiohead unexpectedly played another song, "Creep". They considered it a "throwaway" track, but it impressed the producers. At Kolderie's suggestion, they recorded a take, after which everyone in the studio burst into applause. EMI were persuaded to make "Creep" Radiohead's debut single. According to Kolderie, "everyone [at EMI] who heard Creep just started going insane" and he and Slade were hired to produce the album. Radiohead took elements of "Creep" from the 1972 song "The Air That I Breathe". After Rondor Music took legal action, the songwriters, Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood, were given shared royalties and songwriting credits.

Pablo Honey was recorded in three weeks. Kolderie described it as a struggle, and said: "It was their first record and they wanted to be the Beatles, and the mix had to have no reverb, and they had all the ideas they'd ever come up with in 20 years of listening to records." Kolderie noted the band's studio inexperience and difficulty in finishing tracks, but said he enjoyed the work due to the small group and joking atmosphere.

For the introduction to "Anyone Can Play Guitar", Kolderie had everyone in the studio, including the cook, create sounds on guitar. "The idea was to live up to the title: anyone can play guitar," he said. The guitarist Jonny Greenwood used a paintbrush for his part. Radiohead did not like the version of "Lurgee" they recorded with Kolderie and Slade, and used an earlier version, recorded with Hufford at Courtyard, for the album. Kolderie said Pablo Honey was "not cheap", and estimated that it had cost more than £100,000 to record.

The album title comes from a prank call sketch by the American comedy act the Jerky Boys in which the caller poses as the victim's mother and says: "Pablo, honey? Please come to Florida." Yorke said it was appropriate as the band were "mothers' boys". A sample of the sketch appears during the guitar solo on "How Do You?"

Music and lyrics
In Pablo Honey, critics found elements of grunge, alternative rock, stadium rock, progressive rock, college rock, post-grunge, and jangle pop. The album drew comparisons to Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Sugar, U2, the Smiths, the Cure,  the Who and the Jam. The Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien described it as a "hedonistic" album that "you might put on in an open-top car on a Saturday night going to a party".

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described Pablo Honey as a blend of the anthemic rock of U2 with "atmospheric" instrumental passages. The Salon journalist Annie Zaleski said it featured "distortion-blurred guitar lines that twisted like a kite in the wind". Gary Walker, writing for Guitar.com, described it as "nakedly naive and unguarded" compared to Radiohead's more complex later work. He wrote that it captured the "embryonic dynamic" between the three guitarists and described Greenwood's guitar work as an "exhilarating melange of tremolo-picked soundscapes, chunky octaves, screaming high-register runs and killswitch antics". The opening track, "You", moves between major and minor chords and alternating time signatures. "Blow Out" combines elements of bossa nova and krautrock; it starts with "tense, jazzy" drumming and raked chords and concludes with a shoegaze section.

Zaleski said the Pablo Honey lyrics express anger at the status quo, the feeling of being an outsider, and worry for the future. "Creep" features a quiet verse and a loud chorus, with "blasts" of guitar noise from Jonny Greenwood. Yorke described it as a "self-destruct song". The lyrics were inspired by a woman that Yorke followed around who unexpectedly attended a Radiohead performance. The lyrics of "Stop Whispering" are about oppression, and the frustration from failing to explain it. Yorke wrote the line "Grow my hair, I wanna be Jim Morrison", from "Anyone Can Play Guitar", in response to people in the music business who "think they have to act like fucking prats in order to live up to the legend". According to Zaleski, "Ripcord" is about the "experience of hurtling into the unknown". "Lurgee" ends with a "meandering" solo.

Release and promotion
"Creep" was released as the lead Pablo Honey single on 21 September 1992. It initially received little airplay and sold around 6,000 copies, reaching number 78 in the UK Singles Chart. The 1993 singles "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Stop Whispering", plus the non-album single "Pop Is Dead", were unsuccessful. While "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Pop Is Dead" charted on the UK Singles Chart, "Stop Whispering" gained no traction. Radiohead rerecorded "Stop Whispering" for the US single as they were not happy with the album version; O'Brien said the new version was "more atmospheric", likening it to Joy Division.

In late 1992, Radiohead toured the UK with Kingmaker and the Frank and Walters. That September, they performed at the UK EMI conference. They impressed the EMI promoter Carol Baxter, who said: "This funny little band came on and they obviously had something. This was a hideous record company do but Thom gave it everything." That Christmas, NME published a review of a Radiohead performance that dismissed them as "a pitiful, lily-livered excuse for a rock 'n' roll group".

Pablo Honey was released in February 1993 and received little press. It reached number 25 in 1993's UK Albums Chart. However, "Creep" became a hit in Israel, where it was played frequently by the radio DJ Yoav Kutner. In March, Radiohead were invited to Tel Aviv for their first overseas show. Around the same time, "Creep" rose to number two on the US Modern Rock chart, and Pablo Honey was selling well on import. "Creep" reached number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

In June 1993, Radiohead began their first North American tour. In July, Radiohead gave an infamous performance of "Anyone Can Play Guitar" live on MTV Beach House in which Yorke screamed the improvised lyrics "fat, ugly, dead!", before breaking down on camera and jumping into a pool. Yorke was holding a live microphone and narrowly avoided electrocuting himself.

"Creep" reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart when EMI rereleased it in September 1993. That month, Radiohead performed "Creep" on the British music programme Top of the Pops and as the first musical guests on the American talk show Late Night with Conan O'Brien. EMI's American arm, Capitol, wanted to continue promoting Pablo Honey and build on the momentum. Radiohead declined an offer to tour the US in support of Duran Duran, as their managers felt they could earn more credibility by supporting Belly. They also opened for PJ Harvey in New York City and Los Angeles.

Radiohead struggled with the tour. Yorke disliked dealing with American music journalists and tired of the songs. The band members appeared in promotional material they later regretted, such as fashion shoots for Iceberg jeans and the magazine Interview. According to Radiohead's agent, the promotional work triggered "a lot of soul-searching about why they were in a group at all". Jonny Greenwood said they "spent a year being jukeboxes ... We felt in a creative stasis because we couldn't release anything new." The American tour was followed by a European tour supporting James and Tears for Fears.

Radiohead cancelled an appearance at Reading Festival after Yorke became ill; he told NME, "Physically I'm completely fucked and mentally I've had enough." According to some reports, EMI gave Radiohead six months to "get sorted" or be dropped. EMI's A&R head, Keith Wozencroft, denied this, saying: "Experimental rock music was getting played and had commercial potential. People voice different paranoias, but for the label [Radiohead] were developing brilliantly from Pablo Honey." Kolderie credited the Pablo Honey tours for turning Radiohead "into a tight band".

In the UK, Pablo Honey was certified gold in April 1994, platinum in June 1997 and triple platinum in July 2013. In the US, it was certified gold in September 1993 and platinum in September 1995. On 13 May 1995, a live video, Live at the Astoria (1995), was released on VHS, with performances of Pablo Honey songs such as "Creep", "You" and "Anyone Can Play Guitar".

Critical reception
Pablo Honey failed to make a critical impact upon its initial release. NME's John Harris referred to Radiohead as "one of rock's brightest hopes". Harris said the track "How Do You?" "breaks the [album's] momentum... horribly", but described Pablo Honey as "satisfying" despite its flaws. NME later named it the 35th-best album of the year. Q wrote that "British teenagerhood has never been grumpier" and described Pablo Honey as a good album with moments that rivalled Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and Sugar.

In the United States, "Creep" drew parallels with Nirvana, with some describing Radiohead as the "British Nirvana". Billboard said the lyrics had "enough bite to make it on their own" despite the U2 comparisons. In a mixed review, Mario Mundoz of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it "doesn't really deliver anything you haven't heard before" but "does offer clever lyrics and good hooks". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice did not recommend the album, but named "Creep" a "choice cut". Rolling Stone wrote that the album's charm originates from its guitar work, song structures, melodies, and choruses that invoke a "pop appeal".

Legacy
Although Pablo Honey did not receive the acclaim of Radiohead's later albums, it has received praise in retrospective coverage. The musician and journalist Phil Witmer wrote that "Pablo Honey is endearing because we now know the band that made it would become something extraordinary not even five years later". He chose "You" and "Blow Out" as the most sophisticated tracks, pointing towards Radiohead's later work.

According to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic, the songwriting does not always match Radiohead's sound, but when it does, it achieves "a rare power that is both visceral and intelligent". Kenny EG Perry of NME described the album as "the sound of one of the best bands of this or any other generation playing the music that taught them all their good early lessons". Clash said that it "points towards everything that [Radiohead] would go on to be".

In a 2008 review, Al Spicer of BBC Music described Pablo Honey as Radiohead's "exploration of suburban, adolescent self-awareness" and "one of rock's most impressive debuts". In 2009, PopMatters' Mehan Jahasuriya criticised Pablo Honey as "a hodgepodge of half-baked grunge, jangle-pop and stadium-ready alternative rock ... nearly indistinguishable from other early '90s college rock throwaways, save for a few hints of greatness".

After the success of "Creep", Radiohead grew to resent it. In 1993, Yorke said: "It's like it's not our song any more ... It feels like we're doing a cover." The success almost led to Radiohead's break-up. Their frustration with "Creep" and Pablo Honey influenced their second album, The Bends (1995). The album title, a term for decompression sickness, references Radiohead's rapid rise to fame; Yorke said "we just came up too fast". While touring for their 1997 album OK Computer, Yorke became hostile when "Creep" was mentioned in interviews and refused requests to play it. In the following years, the band stopped performing it entirely, but later started performing it infrequently. Though Radiohead achieved greater commercial and critical success with later albums, "Creep" remains their most successful single. Based on their work on Pablo Honey, the American band Hole hired Slade and Kolderie to produce their 1994 album Live Through This.

In 2007, Pitchfork wrote that, with Pablo Honey, "Radiohead didn't so much ride the coattails of grunge to mass success as stumble over them, and they've been apologising for it ever since." In 1996, the bassist, Colin Greenwood, said, "I'd give [Pablo Honey] a seven out of 10 – not bad for an album recorded in just two and a half weeks." In 1997, O'Brien said it was derivative of Dinosaur Jr. and the Pixies. He described it as "a collection of our greatest hits as an unsigned band". Jonny Greenwood said in 1998 that it "lacked freedom", and was hindered by the band's fear and inexperience. O'Brien said in 2020 that Pablo Honey was "pretty shit [...] but we worked hard and became good. That's one of the things I've held onto: you don't have to have all the answers straight away."

Accolades
In 1998, Pablo Honey was voted the 100th best album of all time in a poll held by Virgin and 61st in a poll by Q. The journalist Colin Larkin placed it 301st in the third edition of All Time Top 1000 Albums (2000). As part of its 2007 list of the "500 Greatest Lost Tracks", Q included "Lurgee" and "Blow Out" in a list of 20 essential lesser-known Radiohead songs. In 2006, Classic Rock and Metal Hammer named Pablo Honey one of the 20 greatest albums of 1993. In 2008, Blender ranked it 82nd in its list of "100 Albums You Must Own".

Reissues
Radiohead left EMI after their contract ended in 2003. In 2007, EMI released Radiohead Box Set, a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI, including Pablo Honey. In 2009, EMI reissued Pablo Honey in a "Collector's Edition" with the Drill EP tracks, B-sides and alternative takes. Radiohead had no input into the reissues and the music was not remastered.

In February 2013, Parlophone was bought by Warner Music Group (WMG). In April 2016, as a result of an agreement with the trade group Impala, WMG transferred Radiohead's back catalogue to XL Recordings. The EMI reissues, released without Radiohead's consent, were removed from streaming services. In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, including Pablo Honey.

Personnel
Adapted from the album's liner notes.

Radiohead

 * Colin Greenwood – bass guitar
 * Jonny Greenwood – lead guitar, piano, organ
 * Ed O'Brien – guitar, backing vocals
 * Philip Selway – drums
 * Thom Yorke – vocals, guitar

Production

 * Chris Blair – mastering
 * Chris Hufford – production, engineering (tracks 10, 11)
 * Paul Q. Kolderie – production, engineering (tracks 1–9, 12), mixing
 * Sean Slade – production, engineering (tracks 1–9, 12), mixing

Design

 * Icon – design
 * Lisa Bunny Jones – paintings
 * Tom Sheehan – photography

title: Pablo Honey


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Hugh Grant

Hugh John Mungo Grant (born 9 September 1960) is an English actor. He established himself early in his career as a charming and vulnerable romantic leading man, and has since transitioned into a character actor. Hallmarks of Grant's comic skills include a nonchalant touch of sarcasm and characteristic physical mannerisms. He has received several accolades including a British Academy Film Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. He received an Honorary César in 2006. , his films had grossed a total of nearly US$3 billion worldwide. In 2022, Time Out magazine listed Grant as one of Britain's 50 greatest actors of all time.

Grant made his feature film acting debut in Privileged (1982), followed by the romantic drama Maurice (1987) for which he gained acclaim as well as the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. He then acted in a string of successful period dramas such as The Remains of the Day (1993), Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Restoration (1995). Grant emerged as a star with Richard Curtis's romantic comedy Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), for which he won the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Actor. He starred in further romantic comedies such as Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and its 2004 sequel, About a Boy (2002), Two Weeks Notice (2002), Love Actually (2003), and Music and Lyrics (2007).

Grant began to take against-type parts earning nominations for two BAFTA Awards for Best Supporting Actor for his roles as St. Clair Bayfield in Florence Foster Jenkins (2016) and an egotistical actor in Paddington 2 (2017). During this period he has acted in the science fiction film Cloud Atlas (2012), several Guy Ritchie action films including The Gentlemen (2019) and the musical fantasy Wonka (2023). He earned two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Limited Series or Movie nominations for his television roles as Jeremy Thorpe in the BBC miniseries A Very English Scandal (2018) and a husband accused of infidelity and murder in the HBO miniseries The Undoing (2020).

Grant has been outspoken about his antipathy towards the profession of acting, his disdain towards the culture of celebrity, and his hostility towards the media. He emerged as a prominent critic of the conduct of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation during the News International phone hacking scandal.

Early life and education
Grant was born on 9 September 1960 in Hammersmith Hospital, the second son of Fynvola Susan MacLean and Captain James Murray Grant. His grandfather, Colonel James Murray Grant, DSO, was decorated for bravery and leadership at Saint-Valery-en-Caux during World War II. Genealogist Antony Adolph has described Grant's family history as "a colourful Anglo-Scottish tapestry of warriors, empire-builders, and aristocracy." His ancestors include Sir Walter Raleigh; William Drummond, 4th Viscount Strathallan; James Stewart; John Murray, 1st Marquess of Atholl; Heneage Finch, 1st Earl of Nottingham; Sir Evan Nepean; and a sister of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.

Grant's father was an officer in the Seaforth Highlanders for eight years in Malaya and Germany. He ran a carpet firm, and pursued hobbies such as golf and watercolour painting; he raised his family in Chiswick, West London, and the Grants lived next to Arlington Park Mansions on Sutton Lane. In September 2006, a collection of Capt. Grant's paintings was hosted by the John Martin Gallery in a charity exhibition, organised by his son, called "James Grant: 30 Years of Watercolours". His mother worked as a schoolteacher and taught Latin, French, and music for more than 30 years in the state schools of West London. She died at the age of 67 of pancreatic cancer.

On Inside the Actors Studio in 2002, Grant credited his mother with "any acting genes that [he] might have". Both his parents were children of military families, but despite his parents' backgrounds, he has stated that his family was not always affluent while growing up. He spent many of his childhood summers shooting and fishing with his grandfather in Scotland. Grant has an older brother, James "Jamie" Grant, a New York-based investment banker.

Grant started his education at Hogarth Primary School in Chiswick, then moved to St Peter's Primary School in Hammersmith, followed by Wetherby School, an independent preparatory school in Notting Hill. From 1969 to 1978, he attended Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, at the time a direct grant grammar school. He was educated on a scholarship and played 1st XV rugby, cricket, and football. He also represented Latymer Upper on the quiz show Top of the Form, an academic competition between two teams of four secondary school students each.

In 1979, he won the Galsworthy scholarship to New College, Oxford. He studied English literature and graduated with a 2.1 grade. Viewing acting as nothing more than a creative outlet, he joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society and was Fabian in a production of Twelfth Night. He also starred in his first film, Privileged (1982), produced by the Oxford University Film Foundation. He received an offer from the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, to pursue a PhD in art history, but decided not to take the offer because he failed to secure a grant.

1982–1986: Early roles and breakthrough
After making his debut in the Oxford-financed film Privileged (1982), Grant dabbled in a variety of jobs, such as working as an assistant groundsman at Fulham Football Club, tutoring, writing comedy sketches for TV shows and working for Talkback Productions to write and produce radio commercials for products such as Mighty White bread and Red Stripe lager. At a screening of Privileged at BAFTA in London, he was approached by a talent agent offering to represent him. Still intending to begin his MPhil at the Courtauld Institute, Grant declined, but then later reconsidered, thinking that acting for a year would be a good way to save some money for his studies. Soon afterwards he was offered a supporting role in The Bounty (1984) starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins, but was prevented from playing the role because he did not yet have an Equity card, which could only be earned through acting in regional theatre. To obtain his Equity card, he joined the Nottingham Playhouse and lived for a year at Park Terrace in The Park Estate in Nottingham. Richard Digby Day directed him in small roles at the Nottingham Playhouse in Lady Windermere's Fan, an avant-garde production of Hamlet and Coriolanus.

Bored with small acting parts, Grant created a sketch-comedy group called The Jockeys of Norfolk, a name taken from Shakespeare's Richard III, with friends Chris Lang and Andy Taylor. The group toured London's pub comedy circuit with stops at The George IV in Chiswick, Canal Cafe Theatre in Little Venice and The King's Head in Islington. The Jockeys of Norfolk proved a hit at the 1985 Edinburgh Festival Fringe after their sketch on the Nativity, told as an Ealing comedy, gained them a spot on Russell Harty's BBC2 TV show Harty Goes to.... In 1986 he played Eric Birling in a production of An Inspector Calls at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, directed by Richard Wilson, giving a performance that Grevel Lindop, writing in the Times Literary Supplement, described as "outstanding". In 1985 and 1986, Grant had minor roles in eight television productions, including TV films, historical miniseries and single episodes of series. His first leading film role came in Merchant-Ivory's Edwardian drama film Maurice (1987), adapted from E. M. Forster's novel. He and co-star James Wilby shared the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival for their portrayals of lovers Clive Durham and Maurice Hall, respectively.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he balanced small roles on television with film work, which included playing Hugh Cholmondeley, 3rd Baron Delamere in the BAFTA Award-nominated White Mischief (1987) and a supporting role in The Dawning (1988) opposite Anthony Hopkins and Jean Simmons. In 1988 he had a leading role in Ken Russell's horror film, The Lair of the White Worm. He was Lord Byron in a Goya Award-winning Spanish production called Remando al viento (1988) and portrayed legendary champagne merchant Charles Heidsieck in the television film Champagne Charlie (1989). In 1990 he had a small role in the sport/crime drama The Big Man, opposite Liam Neeson, in which Grant assumed a Scottish accent; the film explores the life of a Scottish miner (Neeson) who becomes unemployed during a union strike. In 1991 he played Julie Andrews' gay son in the ABC made-for-television film Our Sons.

In 1991 he also starred as Frederic Chopin in Impromptu, opposite Judy Davis as his lover George Sand. In 1992 he appeared in Roman Polanski's film Bitter Moon, portraying a fastidious and proper British tourist who is married but finds himself enticed by the sexual hedonism of a seductive French woman and her embittered, paraplegic American husband. The film was called an "anti-romantic opus of sexual obsession and cruelty" by The Washington Post. In 1993 he had a supporting role in the Merchant-Ivory drama The Remains of the Day. Grant later jokingly called many of the productions of his early career "Europuddings, where you would have a French script, a Spanish director and English actors. The script would usually be written by a foreigner, badly translated into English. And then they'd get English actors in, because they thought that was the way to sell it to America."

1994–1999: Four Weddings and a Funeral and stardom
At 32, Grant claimed to be on the brink of giving up the acting profession but was surprised by the script of Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). "If you read as many bad scripts as I did, you'd know how grateful you are when you come across one where the guy actually is funny," he later recalled. Released in 1994 with Grant as the protagonist, Four Weddings and a Funeral became the highest-grossing British film to date with a worldwide box office in excess of $244 million, making him an overnight international star. His entry in The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema states "Four Weddings made him a truly international star whose image was endlessly promoted in tabloid newspaper articles, television chat shows and magazine profiles, especially in mass circulation women's magazines. Grant was careful to play up to the affable and self-deprecating English gent. His interviewers commented frequently on his romantic attractiveness, a modern matinée idol, blue eyed, very good looking in a classically English way, with his floppy hair and charming smile, his impeccable manners leavened by the occasional expletive".

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards and, among numerous awards won by its cast and crew, it earned Grant a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. It also temporarily typecast him as the lead character, Charles, a bohemian and debonair bachelor. Grant saw it as an inside joke that the star, due to the parts he played, was assumed to have the personality of the screenwriter (Richard Curtis), who is known for writing about himself and his own life. Grant later expressed "Although I owe whatever success I've had to Four Weddings and a Funeral, it did become frustrating after a bit that people made two assumptions: One was that I was that character – when in fact nothing could be further from the truth, as I'm sure Richard would tell you – and the other frustrating thing was that they thought that's all I could do. I suppose, because those films happened to be successful, no one, perhaps understandably, ... bothered to rent all the other films I'd done".

In July 1994, he signed a two-year production deal with Castle Rock Entertainment and, by October, he became founder and director of the UK-based Simian Films Limited. He appointed his then-girlfriend, Elizabeth Hurley, as the head of development to look for prospective projects. Simian Films produced two Grant vehicles in the 1990s and lost a bid to produce About a Boy to Robert De Niro's TriBeCa Productions. The company closed its US office in 2002 and Grant resigned as director in December 2005. Before the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Grant had reunited with its director Mike Newell for the tragicomedy An Awfully Big Adventure (1995), which was labelled a "determinedly off-beat film" by The New York Times. He portrayed the supercilious director of a repertory company in post-World War II Liverpool. Critic Roger Ebert wrote, "It shows that he has range as an actor" but the San Francisco Chronicle disapproved on grounds that the film "plays like a vanity production for Grant". Janet Maslin, praising Grant as "superb" and "a dashing cad under any circumstances", commented, "For him this film represents the road not taken. Made before Four Weddings and a Funeral was released, it captures Mr. Grant as the clever, versatile character actor he was then becoming, rather than the international dreamboat he is today." His next role was as a cartographer in 1917 Wales in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain (1995).

Grant's first studio-financed Hollywood project was opposite Julianne Moore in Chris Columbus's comedy Nine Months (1995). Though a hit at the box office, it was almost universally panned by critics. The Washington Post called it a "grotesquely pandering caper" and singled out Grant's performance, as a child psychiatrist reacting unfavourably to his girlfriend's unexpected pregnancy, for his "insufferable muggings". Grant himself has been highly critical of his performance in Nine Months, stating in a 2016 interview that "I really ruined it. And it was entirely my fault. I panicked, it was such a big jump up from what I'd been paid before to what they were offering me. And the scale was inhuman to my standards, you know the scale of the production, 20th Century Fox, the whole thing. And I just tried much too hard, and you know I forgot to do basic acting things, like mean it. So I pulled faces and overacted, it was a shocker". Next in 1995, he starred as Emma Thompson's suitor in her Academy Award-winning adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee. In 1995 he also performed in Restoration; Lisa Schwarzbaum wrote that Grant is "having a fine and liberating time playing a supercilious court portrait painter", and Kevin Thomas of Los Angeles Times said he has "some delicious moments" in the film. He made his debut as a film producer with the 1996 thriller Extreme Measures. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel each gave the film three out of four stars, with Siskel writing "Hugh Grant's work in Extreme Measures is a refreshing standout."

After a three-year hiatus, in 1999 he paired with Julia Roberts in Notting Hill, which was written by Richard Curtis and produced by much of the same team that was responsible for Four Weddings and a Funeral. This new Working Title production displaced Four Weddings and a Funeral as the biggest British hit in the history of cinema, with earnings equalling $363 million worldwide. As it became exemplary of modern romantic comedies in mainstream culture, the film was also received well by critics. CNN reviewer Paul Clinton said, "Notting Hill stands alone as another funny and heartwarming story about love against all odds." Reactions to his Golden Globe-nominated performance were varied, with Salon.com's Stephanie Zacharek criticising that, "Grant's performance stands as an emblem of what's wrong with Notting Hill. What's maddening about Grant is that he just never cuts the crap. He's become one of those actors who's all shambling self-caricature, from his twinkly crow's feet to the time-lapsed half century it takes him to actually get one of his lines out." The film provided both its stars a chance to satirise the woes of international notoriety, most noted of which was Grant's turn as a faux-journalist who sits through a dull press junket with what The New York Times called "a delightfully funny deadpan".

Grant also released his second production output, a fish-out-of-water mob comedy Mickey Blue Eyes, that year. It was dismissed by critics, performed modestly at the box office and garnered its actor-producer mixed reviews for his starring role. Roger Ebert thought, "Hugh Grant is wrong for the role [and] strikes one wrong note and then another", whereas Kenneth Turan, writing in the Los Angeles Times, said, "If he'd been on the Titanic, fewer lives would have been lost. If he'd accompanied Robert Scott to the South Pole, the explorer would have lived to be 100. That's how good Hugh Grant is at rescuing doomed ventures."

2000–2009: Continued romantic comedy roles
While promoting Woody Allen's Small Time Crooks (2000) on NBC's The Today Show in 2000, Grant told host Matt Lauer, "It's my millennium of bastards". Small Time Crooks starred Grant, in the words of film critic Andrew Sarris, as "a petty, petulant, faux-Pygmalion art dealer, David, [who] is one of the sleaziest and most unsympathetic characters Mr. Allen has ever created". In a role devoid of his comic attributes, The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Grant deftly imbues his character with exactly a perfect blend of charm and nasty calculation." In 2000, Grant also joined the supervisory board of IM Internationalmedia AG, the powerful Munich-based film and media company. In 2001, his turn as a charming but womanising book publisher Daniel Cleaver in Bridget Jones's Diary was proclaimed by Variety to be "as sly an overthrow of a star's polished posh – and nice – poster image as any comic turn in memory". The film, adapted from Helen Fielding's novel of the same name, was an international hit, earning $281 million worldwide. He was, according to The Washington Post, fitting as "a cruel, manipulative cad, hiding behind the male god's countenance that he knows all too well".

In 2002, Grant starred as the trust-funded womaniser, Will Freeman, in the film adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-selling novel About a Boy. The BBC thought Grant delivered an "immaculate comic performance", and with an Academy Award-nominated screenplay, About a Boy was determined by The Washington Post to be "that rare romantic comedy that dares to choose messiness over closure, prickly independence over fetishised coupledom, and honesty over typical Hollywood endings". Rolling Stone wrote, "The acid comedy of Grant's performance carries the film [and he] gives this pleasing heartbreaker the touch of gravity it needs", while Roger Ebert observed that "the Cary Grant department is understaffed, and Hugh Grant shows here that he is more than a star, he is a resource". Released a day after the blockbuster Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones, About a Boy was a more modest box office grosser than other successful Grant films, making all of $129 million globally. The film earned Grant his third Golden-Globe nomination, while the London Film Critics Circle named Grant its Best British Actor and GQ honoured him as one of the magazine's men of the year 2002. "His performance can only be described as revelatory", wrote critic Ann Hornaday, adding that "Grant lends the shoals layer upon layer of desire, terror, ambivalence and self-awareness." The New York Observer concluded: "[The film] gets most of its laughs from the evolved expertise of Hugh Grant in playing characters that audiences enjoy seeing taken down a peg or two as a punishment for philandering and womanising and simply being too handsome for words-and with an English accent besides. In the end, the film comes over as a messy delight, thanks to the skill, generosity and good-sport, punching-bag panache of Mr. Grant's performance."

About a Boy also marked a notable change in his boyish look. Now 41, he had lost weight and also abandoned his trademark floppy hair. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman took note of Grant's maturation in his review, saying he looked noticeably older and that it "looked good on him". He added that Grant's "pillowy cheeks are flatter and a bit drawn, and the eyes that used to peer with 'love me' cuteness now betray a shark's casual cunning. Everything about him is leaner and spikier (including his hair, which has been shorn and moussed into a Eurochic bed-head mess), but it's not just his surface that's more virile; the nervousness is gone, too. Hugh Grant has grown up, holding on to his lightness and witty cynicism but losing the stuttering sherry-club mannerisms that were once his signature. In doing so, he has blossomed into the rare actor who can play a silver-tongued sleaze with a hidden inner decency." He was paired with Sandra Bullock in Warner Bros.'s Two Weeks Notice (2002), which made $199 million internationally but received poor reviews. The Village Voice concluded that Grant's creation of a spoiled billionaire fronting a real estate business was "little more than a Britishism machine". Two Weeks Notice was followed by the 2003 ensemble comedy, Love Actually, headlined by Grant as the British Prime Minister. A Christmas release by Working Title Films, the film was promoted as "the ultimate romantic comedy" and accumulated $246 million at the international box office. It marked the directorial debut of Richard Curtis, who told The New York Times that Grant adamantly tempered the characterisation of the role to make his character more authoritative and less haplessly charming than earlier Curtis incarnations. Roger Ebert claimed that "Grant has flowered into an absolutely splendid romantic comedian" and has "so much self-confidence that he plays the British prime minister as if he took the role to be a good sport". Film critic Rex Reed, on the contrary, called his performance "an oversexed bachelor spin on Tony Blair" as the star "flirted with himself in the paroxysm of self-love that has become his acting style".

In 2004, he reprised his role as Daniel Cleaver for a small part in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, which, like its predecessor, made more than $262 million commercially. Gone from the screen for two years, Grant next re-teamed with Paul Weitz (About a Boy) for the black comedy American Dreamz (2006). Grant starred as the acerbic host of an American Idol-like reality show where, according to Caryn James of The New York Times, "nothing is real ... except the black hole at the centre of the host's heart, as Mr. Grant takes Mr. Cowell's villainous act to its limit". American Dreamz failed financially but Grant was generously praised. He played his self-aggrandising character, an amalgam of Simon Cowell and Ryan Seacrest, with smarmy self-loathing. The Boston Globe proposed that this "just may be the great comic role that has always eluded Hugh Grant", and critic Carina Chocano said, "He is twice as enjoyable as the preening bad guy as he was as the bumbling good guy."

In 2007, he starred opposite Drew Barrymore in a parody of pop culture and the music industry called Music and Lyrics. The Associated Press described it as "a weird little hybrid of a romantic comedy that's simultaneously too fluffy and not whimsical enough". Though he neither listens to music nor owns any CDs, Grant learned to sing, play the piano, dance (a few mannered steps) and studied the mannerisms of prominent musicians to prepare for his role as a has-been pop singer, based loosely on Andrew Ridgeley, member of 1980s pop duo Wham!. The film, with its revenues totalling $145 million, allowed him to mock disposable pop stardom and fleeting celebrity through its washed-up lead character. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "Grant strikes precisely the right note with regard to Alex's career: He's too intelligent not to be a little embarrassed, but he's far too brazen to feel anything like shame." In 2009, he starred opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in the Marc Lawrence's romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans?, which was a critical failure and box office disappointment.

2012–2017: Mid-career experimentation
Grant was featured in the Wachowskis' and Tom Tykwer's epic science fiction film Cloud Atlas in 2012, playing six different dark characters. In the same year, Grant lent his voice to the Aardman stop motion animation The Pirates! Band of Misfits. He reunited with Lawrence again for a dramedy film The Rewrite (2014), starring opposite Marisa Tomei. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews, while Grant's performance was praised by many critics; director Quentin Tarantino has stated that the film is one of his favourites of the year and called Grant a "perfect leading man".

In 2015, he had a supporting role as Alexander Waverly in Guy Ritchie's crime thriller The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; Entertainment Weekly described his performance as "the only bit of fun" in the film, and Glenn Kenny of Rogerebert.com gave the film a mixed review but stated that "while it can't be said that Hugh Grant saves the movie, his return to prominence in the last half-hour, after a plot-seeding-walk-on earlier in the movie, peps things up considerably".

In 2016, Grant played St. Clair Bayfield, partner of the title character, in the film Florence Foster Jenkins, directed by Stephen Frears and starring Meryl Streep. His performance drew raves from film critics as "career-best" (Screen International), "one of his best performances in years" (Indiewire), "best work of his career" (Variety) where he "goes deeper, darker and riskier" (Rolling Stone). Rafer Guzman of Newsday said "Surely the 55-year-old actor has just sealed his first-ever Oscar nomination." Carrie Rickey of Yahoo! Movies commented that Grant "deserves the Globe, an Oscar nomination, and the recognition — finally — that he is unique and irreplaceable among modern actors". He was nominated for his first individual Screen Actors Guild Award and also earned nominations for a BAFTA, a Golden Globe, a Critics' Choice Award, a Satellite Award and a European Film Award. Several critics put his work among the best acting performances of the year. Most award pundits predicted Grant would receive his first Academy Award nomination for his performance, but he was not nominated.

His next appearance was as Phoenix Buchanan, a villain in the family film Paddington 2, which was a commercial and critical success. The Guardian described his performance as "scene-stealing", while IGN commented "Grant continues to make an astonishing comeback in his career, once again by playing into his expert comedic abilities as Phoenix Buchanan, who dons each of his ridiculous disguises with a kind of egotistical obliviousness that Grant is perfect at pulling off." Grant went on to win London Film Critics' Circle Award for Supporting Actor of the Year and was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his performance. Grant's performance was ranked as the 22nd greatest movie performance of the decade by IndieWire in 2019.

2018–present: Mature career renaissance
In 2018, Grant returned to television screens after 25 years, as Jeremy Thorpe in the BBC One miniseries A Very English Scandal, which marked his second collaboration with director Stephen Frears. The miniseries, and in particular Grant, were widely and highly praised. Digital Spy's review stated that "There's always been a bit of the devil in Grant's best turns, and in Thorpe, a man with a fully-realised dark side, he's found his richest part in years". The New Statesman wrote, "Hugh Grant is Thorpe, and everything about his performance is exactly so. It's the role of Grant's life, and he performs it even more brilliantly than he did Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2." The Sunday Times stated, "It's become tediously predictable to praise this drama but, as Thorpe, Hugh Grant really has proved he's getting better as he's getting older". The Guardian called him "utterly captivating", and The Boston Globe wrote, "Grant is a revelation". The New Yorker stated, "Grant gives a brilliant performance as Thorpe, whose arrogance, charm, and profoundly evasive nature he captures with subtlety. A quarter century after [He] established himself as everyone's crush with his romantic-comedy début, in Four Weddings and a Funeral ... the actor, who is now in his late fifties, has turned out to have a gift for conveying what happens to an individual when charm curdles into something considerably darker." Grant was nominated for several awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award for Best Actor.

In 2019, Grant played another against-type role, in Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen, his second collaboration with the director following The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Grant plays Fletcher, a seedy and unscrupulous private investigator, which he called "a fun bit of casting" referring to his Hacked Off campaigning. He has stated he based his character on tabloid reporters who "used to be my enemies and now they're my friends". Even though the film received mostly mixed reviews, Grant's performance was praised. Stephen Dalton of The Hollywood Reporter called Grant "a beating comic heart" of the film, adding that "he weighs up every wry line with relish, and Ritchie makes strong use of his deadpan comic talents." Joe Morgenstern of Wall Street Journal also highly praised his work, writing, "[I]n a word, Mr. Grant is sensational. In two more words, he's absolutely hilarious; it's some of the best work he's done on screen."

In 2020, Grant starred in HBO miniseries The Undoing, opposite Nicole Kidman and Donald Sutherland. The miniseries was premiered on 25 October 2020 to mixed reviews, though Grant's performance was widely acclaimed. Film critic Caryn James said Grant has the "richest part" and added, "He sharply defines Jonathan as a slippery character, and walks the line expertly to keep us off guard. How much should we trust Jonathan? When he starts confessing some secrets, is all or any of it true? With this role and that in the recent A Very English Scandal, Grant has become expert at bringing his charm to darker characters." Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com was less impressed with the series but called Grant's performance as the "series-best". Grant received a Screen Actors Guild Award, Golden Globe Award and Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for his performance.

In 2023, Grant reunited with Guy Ritchie for the action Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre alongside Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza. The movie was originally planned to be released on early 2022 but had several delays. While the film was a box office flop with mixed reviews, Grant's performance still received mostly positive response. The A.V. Club said Grant "delivers a fantastic character performance" and "is so committed that he throws off the balance of the ensemble because no one else is as good as he is." He next appeared as an ambitious rogue and con artist Forge in the fantasy adventure film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Jonah Nink of Chicago Reader praised his performance by saying "None of the cast holds a fireball to Hugh Grant, however, who owns every second of his goofball performance as one of the film's villains."

Also in 2023, Grant appeared as an Oompa-Loompa in Wonka, a film which serves as a prequel to the Roald Dahl novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, exploring Willy Wonka's origins. In selecting Grant for the role, Wonka director Paul King told Empire magazine, “Going back to the book, and reading all those poems, and hearing [the Oompa Loompas’] voice as a very sort of cynical, sarcastic, cruel, funny, but wicked voice, I went, 'Oh... That's sort of a bit like Hugh!’” Despite initial backlash from the dwarfism community over his casting, Grant ultimately received praise for his performance, with Nick Levine of NME writing "A scene-stealing Grant provides the comic highlights as Lofty, a supercilious Oompa Loompa with a grudge against Chalamet's title character, Willy Wonka." In 2024, Grant had a guest appearance in Stephen Frears-directed, Kate Winslet-starring HBO limited series The Regime. The same year he played a fictional version of Thurl Ravenscroft who voiced Tony the Tiger in the Jerry Seinfeld comedy film Unfrosted. Grant's performance was praised with Matt Schimkowitz of The A.V. Club describing him as the film's "MVP" and William Bibbiani of TheWrap writing that he "had the film’s only consistently funny subplot.". Grant is set to star in the upcoming A24 horror film Heretic (2024). It was announced that Grant would reprise his role as Daniel Cleaver in the romantic comedy Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Acting credits and accolades
Over his career Grant has received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Volpi Cup for Best Actor as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Screen persona
Grant began his career as a character actor but became predominantly a comedy (especially a romantic comedy) actor from his rise to stardom in mid-1990s until the 2010s. He said he moved away from romantic comedies after the failure of Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009). In a 2020 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, he said: "I got old and ugly and I'm not appropriate for romantic comedy films anymore, which has been a great blessing". Even though his recent credits include political dramas like A Very English Scandal and crime films like The Gentlemen, Grant is still often associated with his Richard Curtis-scripted romantic comedy films. In the British press, it is common to compare young romantic comedy actors to him.

Remarking upon his romantic comedy star era, some film critics, such as Roger Ebert, have defended the limited variety of his performances, while some others have dismissed Grant as a "one-trick pony". Eric Fellner, co-owner of Working Title Films and a longtime collaborator, said, "His range hasn't been fully tested, but each performance is unique." Many of Grant's films of the 1990s followed a similar plot that captured an optimistic bachelor experiencing a series of embarrassing incidents to find true love, often with an American woman. In earlier films, he was adept at plugging into the stereotype of a repressed Englishman for humorous effects, allowing him to gently satirise his characters as he summed them up and played against the type simultaneously. These performances were sometimes deemed excessive, in the words of The Washington Post's Rita Kempley, due to Grant's "comic overreactions—the mugging, the stuttering, the fluttering eyelids". She added: "He's got more tics than Benny Hill." His penchant for conveying his characters' feelings with mannerisms, rather than direct emotions, has been one of the foremost objections raised against his acting style. Stephen Hunter of The Washington Post once stated that, to be effective as a comic performer, Grant must get "his jiving and shucking under control". Film historian David Thomson opined in The New Biographical Dictionary of Film that the actor equated merely "itchy mannerisms" with screen acting.

Grant's screen persona in his films of the 2000s gradually developed into a cynical, self-loathing cad. Claudia Puig of USA Today celebrated this transformation with the observation that finally "gone [were] the self-conscious 'Aren't I adorable' mannerisms that seemed endearing at the start of his film career but have grown cloying in more recent movies". According to Carina Chocano, amongst film critics, the two tropes most commonly associated with Grant are that he reinvented his screen persona in Bridget Jones's Diary and About a Boy and dreads the possibility of becoming a parody of himself.

Nonetheless, Grant has occasionally acted in dramas. He played a sleazy, snide community theatre director with a penchant for young actors in the drama film An Awfully Big Adventure, which received critical praise, and for "a very quiet, dignified" performance as Frédéric Chopin in James Lapine's biopic film Impromptu. In 2012, he played six "incredibly evil" characters in the epic drama film Cloud Atlas, an experience he has talked about positively, saying: "I thought before I read it that I'd turn it down, which I normally do, but I was interested in meeting [Cloud Atlas co-directors] the Wachowskis because I have always admired them enormously. And they are so charming and fascinating.... I slightly called my own bluff. In one of the parts I am a cannibal, about 2,000 years in the future, and I thought, 'I can do that. It's easy.' And then I am suddenly standing in a cannibal skirt on a mountaintop in Germany and they are saying, 'You know, hungry! We must have that flesh-eating, like a leopard who is so hungry', and I am thinking, 'I can't do that! Just give me a witty line!'"

After Cloud Atlas, Grant has never starred in a romantic comedy film with an exception of the dramedy The Rewrite (2014), where "romantic comedy is only a small part of it." Grant is known as a meticulous performer who approaches his roles like a character actor, working hard to make his acting appear spontaneous. In a career spanning more than 35 years, Grant has repeatedly claimed that acting was not his true calling, but rather a career that developed by happenstance. However, in 2020, after moving on to more character roles, he has stated that he "enjoys acting now".

Personality
Grant has expressed boredom with playing the celebrity in the press and is known in the media for his guarded privacy. On probing of his personal life, he has remained steadfast in "offering a dead bat to any question he feels is not general enough". He has described himself as a reluctant actor, has called being a successful actor a mistake and has repeatedly talked of his hope that film stardom would just be "a phase" in his life, lasting no more than ten years.

A 2007 Vogue profile referred to him as a man with a "professionally misanthropic mystique". He has expressed distaste for focus groups, market research, and emphasis on opening weekend box-office numbers, saying: "It's so destructive to the filmmaking process. What was wrong with the way they used to release films, more slowly, let them build?" The director Mike Newell has said: "There is at least as much of Hugh that is charismatic, intellectual, and whose tongue is maybe too clever for its own good as there is of him that's gorgeous and kind of woolly and flubsy." Filmmaker Paul Weitz said that Grant is funny and that "he perceives flaws in himself and other people, and then he cares about their humanity nonetheless". British newspapers regularly refer to him as "grumpy".

Grant is a self-confessed "committed and passionate" perfectionist on a film set. The American film critic Dave Kehr has written that Grant "is known in the film industry as a meticulous performer who takes his time to prepare a role – someone who works hard to make it look easy – though that isn't a trait he admires in himself". He is noted by co-workers for demanding endless takes until he achieves the desired shot according to his own standard.

He dropped his agent in 2006, ending a 10-year relationship with CAA. He has proclaimed in interviews that he does not listen to external views on his career: "They've known for years that I have total control. I've never taken any advice on anything."

Libel lawsuits
In 1996, Grant won substantial damages from News (UK) Ltd over what his lawyers called a "highly defamatory" article published in January 1995. The company's newspaper, Today, which ceased publication the following November, had falsely claimed that Grant verbally abused a young extra with a "foul-mouthed tongue lashing" on the set of The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain.

On 27 April 2007, he accepted undisclosed damages from Associated Newspapers over claims made about his relationships with his former girlfriends in three separate tabloid articles, which were published in the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday on 18, 21 and 24 February. His lawyer stated that all of the articles' "allegations and factual assertions are false". Grant said, in a written statement, that he took the action because: "I was tired of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday papers publishing almost entirely fictional articles about my private life for their own financial gain." He went on to take the opportunity to stress, "I'm also hoping that this statement in court might remind people that the so-called 'close friends' or 'close sources' on which these stories claim to be based almost never exist."

Legal issues

On 27 June 1995, Grant was arrested in Los Angeles, California, in a police vice operation near Sunset Boulevard for receiving oral sex in a public place from Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown. He pleaded no contest and was fined $1,180, placed on two years' summary probation, and was ordered to complete an AIDS education program by Judge Robert J. Sandoval.

The arrest occurred about two weeks before the release of his first major studio film, Nine Months, which he was scheduled to promote on several American television shows. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno had him booked for the same week. In the much-watched interview (which saw Leno overtake David Letterman in the ratings), Grant did not make excuses for the incident after Leno asked him, "What the hell were you thinking?" Grant answered, "I think you know in life what's a good thing to do and what's a bad thing, and I did a bad thing. And there you have it."

On Larry King Live, he declined host Larry King's repeated invitations to probe his psyche, saying that psychoanalysis was "more of an American syndrome" and he himself was "a bit old fashioned". He told the host: "I don't have excuses." CNN reported that "Many are also applauding Grant for his refreshing honesty in a culture that has become fed up with overuse of the word 'abuse,' but Grant did not resort to an excuse." Radio host Scott Shannon said, "He went ahead and faced the music and handled it with tongue [in] cheek."

In April 2007, he was arrested on allegations of assault made by paparazzo Ian Whittaker. Grant made no official statement and did not comment on the incident. Charges were dropped on 1 June 2007 by the Crown Prosecution Service on the grounds of "insufficient evidence".

Phone hacking exposé
In April 2011, Grant published an article in the New Statesman titled "The Bugger, Bugged" about a conversation (following an earlier encounter) with Paul McMullan, a former journalist and paparazzo for News of the World. In unguarded comments which were secretly taped by Grant, McMullan alleged that editors at the Daily Mail and News of the World, particularly Andy Coulson, had ordered journalists to engage in illegal phone tapping and had done so with the full knowledge of senior British politicians. McMullan also said that every British Prime Minister from Margaret Thatcher onwards had cultivated a close relationship with Rupert Murdoch and his senior executives. He stressed the friendship between David Cameron and Rebekah Brooks (née Wade), agreeing when asked that both of them must have been aware of illegal phone tapping, and asserting that Cameron's inaction could be explained by self-interest: "Cameron is very much in debt to Rebekah Wade for helping him not quite win the election ... So that was my submission to parliament – that Cameron's either a liar or an idiot."

When asked by Grant whether Cameron had encouraged the Metropolitan Police to "drag their feet" on investigating illegal phone tapping by Murdoch's journalists, McMullan agreed this had happened, and stated that police themselves had taken bribes from tabloid journalists: "20 percent of the Met has taken backhanders from tabloid hacks. So why would they want to open up that can of worms?... And what's wrong with that, anyway? It doesn't hurt anyone particularly."

Grant's article attracted considerable interest, due to both the revelatory content of the taped conversation, and the novelty of his "turning the tables" on a tabloid journalist.

While the allegations regarding the News of the World continued to receive coverage in the broadsheets and similar media (Grant appeared, for example, on BBC Radio 4) it was only with the revelation that the voicemail of murdered Milly Dowler had been hacked, and evidence for her murder enquiry had been deleted, that the coverage turned from media interest to widespread public (and eventually political) outrage. Grant became something of a spokesman against Murdoch's News Corporation, culminating in his appearance on BBC television's Question Time in July 2011. Grant later said: "It's been fascinating to have a little excursion into another world. I really needed that and also to be dealing with real life instead of creating synthetic life, which is what I've been doing for the last 25 years."

On 5 February 2018, Mirror Group Newspapers apologised for its actions towards Grant and other public figures, calling the affair "morally wrong". This came after Grant accepted a six-figure sum to settle a High Court action. He donated the payout to the press campaign group Hacked Off.

In April 2024 Grant announced that he had settled a case against the publisher of The Sun, News Group Newspapers (NGN). In the case, Grant had claimed journalists employed by NGN had used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house. Grant said he "did not want to accept" the "enormous sum of money" he had been offered to settle - but that a trial was likely to prove "very expensive". Grant further stated that had he proceeded he would have faced a bill of up to £10 million even if he had won the case. NGN denied the claims against it.

Relationships
In 1987, while playing Lord Byron in the Spanish production Remando Al Viento (1988), Grant met actress Elizabeth Hurley, who was cast in a supporting role as Byron's former lover Claire Clairmont. He began dating Hurley during filming and their relationship was subsequently the subject of much media attention. While dating Hurley, Grant gained international notoriety for soliciting the services of a prostitute, Divine Brown, in 1995. They separated in May 2000, but Grant is godfather to Hurley's son Damian, born in 2002.

Grant has five children with two women. In September 2011, he had a daughter with Tinglan Hong, who was variously misreported in the press as a receptionist at a Chinese restaurant in London or a Chinese actress. His daughter's Chinese name is Jing Xi (驚喜), meaning "happy surprise". Grant and Hong had a "fleeting affair", according to his publicist. In 2012, he stated that Hong had been "badly treated" by the media; the press intrusion prevented him from attending the birth of his daughter, with Hong obtaining an injunction to allow him to visit them in peace.

In September 2012, Grant's second child, a son, was born to Swedish television producer Anna Eberstein. Hong and Grant reunited briefly and she gave birth to Grant's third child, a son, in December 2012.

Grant's daughters with Eberstein were born in December 2015 and March 2018. He and Eberstein married on 25 May 2018.

Political views
In 2011, Grant appeared at the Liberal Democrats' conference on the News International phone-hacking scandal, where he briefly met then-party leader Nick Clegg. Grant said that he was attending the Conservative and Labour conferences as well, but told Lib Dem activists that "You, more than any of the other parties, have a good bill of health. You have never been in bed with these scumbags."

In the 2015 general election, Grant expressed support for Liberal Democrat MP Danny Alexander and later hosted a dinner for the Liberal Democrats, in which he met the winner of a draw of donors to the Liberal Democrats. In an email sent by former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, Grant wrote: "I am not a Lib Dem, a Tory, a Labourite or anything in particular but I recognise political guts." In the 2015 election, he endorsed two Labour candidates: Tom Watson and his former agent, Michael Foster.

During the 2019 general election Grant campaigned for tactical voting to stop a Conservative majority and Brexit. He was seen canvassing with Liberal Democrats candidates, Labour candidates, and independent Dominic Grieve.

In the 2024 general election, Grant publicly endorsed Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, for the newly-established Bristol Central seat. Grant stated that Denyer was "a politician with integrity, who puts the public first".

Sport
As a young boy, he played rugby union on his school's first XV team at centre and also played football. He is a fan of Fulham. He continued to play in a Sunday-morning football league in south-west London after college and remains an "impassioned Fulham supporter". His other interests include tennis and snooker.

In 2011, the BBC apologised after Grant made an offhand joke about homosexuality and rugby when he was invited into the commentary box during coverage of an England v Scotland game at Twickenham Stadium. Talking about playing rugby during his school days, Grant said: "I discovered it hurt less if you tackled hard than if you tackled like a queen".

Relationships with co-stars
After production on Restoration ended, Grant's co-star, Robert Downey Jr., revealed that he and Grant did not get along during filming. Downey said: "I kinda think he's a jerk. Don't know, I just think he is. My personal experience with him is I think he's this kind of self-important, kind of, like, boring flash-in-the-pan asshole Brit." In 2018, Grant confirmed the on-set tension he and Downey had had, stating: "He [Downey] hated me. He took one look at me and wanted to kill me. I was so hurt." As a result of Grant's confirmation of their decades-long feud, Downey went to Twitter to publicly make amends with Grant, to which Grant agreed.

In addition to the confirmation, Grant also said that he and Drew Barrymore did not get along during production of Music and Lyrics. "Well, Drew, I think did hate me a bit. But I admired her. We just were very different human beings," Grant said. "She was very L.A. and I was an old grumpy Londoner. The funny thing is, although it was fractionally tense on the set of that film, I think the chemistry is rather good between us. Sometimes tension makes a good crackle." Barrymore had also been one out of three leading ladies Grant listed whom he did not get along with, the others being Julianne Moore and Rachel Weisz. However, on a Graham Norton Show appearance, Grant told Graham Norton he did not know why he mentioned Weisz and he was probably "going for a 'comedy triple'". He is also on good terms with Barrymore and appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show.

Grant has praised many other female co-stars, including Sandra Bullock, Sarah Jessica Parker, Emma Thompson, and Meryl Streep, who co-starred with him in Florence Foster Jenkins and was "a genius" according to Grant. He referred to his Bridget Jones's Diary co-star Renée Zellweger as "delightful".

Philanthropy
Grant is a patron of the DIPEx Charity, which operates the website Healthtalkonline. He is also patron of the Fynvola Foundation, named after his late mother; it supports the Lady Dane Farmhouse, a home in Faversham for adults with learning disabilities.

Since his mother's death in 2001, Grant has worked as a fundraiser and ambassador for Marie Curie Cancer Care, promoting the charity's annual Great Daffodil Appeal on several occasions. He is also a patron of Pancreatic Cancer Action.

In December 2023, Grant worked with Hammersmith and Fulham Council to support their annual Big H&F Christmas Day Lunch, with Grant spending Christmas Day serving Christmas dinner to elderly residents who might otherwise spend Christmas alone, and be at risk of social isolation and loneliness.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Hugh Grant


text:
Bomfunk MC's

The Bomfunk MC's is a Finnish hip hop group that was active between 1998 and 2005, before reuniting in 2018. The group's frontman is the rapper B.O. Dubb (born Raymond Ebanks, and formerly known as B.O.W.), and the main producer is Jaakko Salovaara, known as JS16.

1999–2005
The band's debut release was the 1999 album In Stereo (Sony Music), which contained the singles "Freestyler", "Uprocking Beats", and "B-Boys & Flygirls", all of which were popular in the United Kingdom. "Uprocking Beats" reached the number one position on the Finnish Dance charts. In Stereo sold over 600,000 units.

The album's success led to the release of "Freestyler" in Scandinavia and Germany; by 2000, "Freestyler" was popular throughout Europe, becoming the region's highest-selling single of the year. The single also reached the number one position in Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany, and was number two in the United Kingdom. However, the single led to a minor controversy: the line, "Who the fuck is Alice, is she from Buckingham Palace?", was censored for the UK radio version, and the video featured intensive Sony product placement.

The Bomfunk MC's won the 2000 Best Nordic Act award at the MTV Europe Music Awards.

In 2002, the group released their second album Burnin' Sneakers, spawning the singles "Super Electric", "Live Your Life", featuring Max'C, and "(Crack It!) Something Goin' On" with Jessica Folcker. This album gained less attention internationally, though it sold well in Finland. "Something Goin' On" reached the German top 10.

In September 2002, DJ Gismo decided to leave the band (shortly afterwards joining the band Stonedeep), and was promptly replaced by Riku Pentti (DJ) and Okke Komulainen (keyboards). After they joined, Bomfunk MC's released a special remix of "Back to Back".

In 2004, their third and last album Reverse Psychology was released by Universal Music, preceded by the single "No Way in Hell". In the autumn of that year, they released another single from that album, "Hypnotic", featuring Elena Mady. Half of the album was produced by JS16, and the other half by Pentti, Komulainen, and Ville Mäkinen, who called themselves The Skillsters Plus One.

Reverse Psychology and its singles did not garner much attention outside the Nordic countries. Both of the singles reached the German top 100 but did not chart elsewhere in Western Europe. Fan reception was mixed. A lot of fans still saw DJ Gismo as one half of the face of the band, despite DJ Gismo not being involved in the production of the band's music, except for providing scratches; the remixes of Bomfunk tracks carrying his name were produced by the band's producer, JS16.

In 2005, Bomfunk MC's toured New Zealand during university orientation playing dates in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington, Hamilton and Auckland in support of their album Reverse Psychology.

2019–present
Many of the band's collaborators dedicated themselves to other musical projects or activities or faded into obscurity. The band's main producer and mentor, JS16, remained musically active as a solo artist; 2007 saw the release of his first solo track in over half a decade, "Rosegarden" (which achieved significant club play). He is also a successful remixer and forms half of the successful dance act Dallas Superstars.

In the summer of 2019, the band made their comeback with the classic line-up. They played at several festivals, introducing two new tracks, "Can't Runaway" and "Mic Drop". B.O. Dubb and DJ Gismo took part along with their producer JS16 who became an official member of the group.

In February 2019, the video for "Freestyler" was reshot as a tribute for the 20th anniversary of its release. The new version features the original band members and re-enacts scenes from the original but with a modern twist. This includes replacing the Sony mini-disk player that controlled the music with a smart phone, changing the main character from male to female, and introducing some modern dance styles. The video was shot in Belgrade, Serbia.

In popular culture
Two of Bomfunk MC's songs have been featured in the PlayStation racing game Firebugs. They were "We R Atomic", and "Put Ya Hands Up". Both songs are from the album Burnin' Sneakers. “We R Atomic” was originally witten for Sega as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog series.

Members
Current members
 * Raymond Ebanks (a.k.a. B.O.W. or B.O. Dubb) – MC (1998–2005, 2019–present)
 * Ismo Lappalainen (a.k.a. DJ Gismo) – DJ (1998–2002, 2019–present)
 * Jaakko Salovaara (a.k.a. JS16) – producer (1998–2005, 2019–present)

Former members
 * Ville Mäkinen (a.k.a. Mr Wily) – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1998–2005)
 * Riku Pentti (a.k.a. DJ Infekto) – DJ (2002–2005)
 * Okke Komulainen – keyboards (2002–2005)
 * Ari Toikka (a.k.a. A.T.) – drums (1998–2005)

Music videos

 * "Uprocking Beats" (1999)
 * "B-Boys & Flygirls" (1999)
 * "Freestyler" (1999)
 * "B-Boys & Flygirls Y2K Mix" (2000)
 * "Uprocking Beats JS 16 Radio Mix" (2000)
 * "Super Electric" (2001)
 * "Live Your Life" (2002)
 * "(Crack It!) Something Goin' On" (2002)
 * "Back to Back" (2002)
 * "No Way in Hell" (2004)
 * "Hypnotic" (2005)
 * "Freestyler" (2019)

title: Bomfunk MC's


text:
HiM (American band)

HiM is a dub-influenced post-rock group formed in 1995 by Doug Scharin, drummer for the bands Codeine, Rex and June of 44. Their first album, Egg, was their most dub-based effort. Each successive album has gone more in a quasi-world music direction. After some recording for Crooklyn Dub Consortium and Wordsound, Interpretive Belief System, HiM settled on a lineup of Scharin with Bundy K. Brown, Rob Mazurek and Jeff Parker, members or occasional members of Tortoise and Isotope 217. Their first album was the underground hit Sworn Eyes, produced by Doug Scharin. A few personnel changes followed, and the revamped lineup including members of June of 44. HiM released Our Point of Departure in 1999, which signified a very clear shift toward a more jazz-like sound, followed by a major American and European tour. In 2003, HiM released Many in High Places Are Not Well on Fat Cat Records, which was received as their most successful and fully realized release. Peoples was released in mid-2006, featuring a cleaner sound with more vocals than any of HiM's previous releases. Included in this line-up are Martin Perna and Jordan McLean from Antibalas, Griffin Rodriguez from Need New Body/Icy Demons, Adam Pierce (Mice Parade). The latest HiM records, 1110 and ん, released in 2008 and 2009 on Afterhours in Tokyo, are collaborations between Doug Scharin, Josh Larue and the Tokyo-based group, Ultra Living.

Discography

 * Crooklyn Dub Consortium – Certified Dope Vol. 1 (CD) Chemical Mix – 1995 WordSound
 * Egg – 1996 Southern Records
 * Crooklyn Dub Consortium. Certified Dope, Vol. 2 (CD) Tradition – 1996 WordSound
 * Chill and Peel (12") – 1996 Southern Records
 * Macro Dub Infection Volume 2 (2xCD, Comp) Liquid Boy – 1996 Virgin
 * Changes / The Focus (12") – 1997 Soul Static Sound
 * HiM / The Dylan Group – 1997 Bubble Core
 * Interpretive Belief System – 1997 WordSound
 * Sworn Eyes – 1999 Perishable Records
 * 5/6 In Dub (12") – 2000 Afterhours
 * Our Point of Departure – 2000 Perishable Records
 * New Features – 2001 Bubble Core
 * Remix Series #1: Japan (12") – 2002 Afterhours/FatCat Records
 * Many in High Places Are Not Well – 2003 Bubble Core/FatCat Records
 * Lila (12", S/Sided, Etch) – 2003 Galaxia
 * Nantes(live) – 2004 Afterhours
 * 15/15: Collaborations Of Sound And Visuals (CD) Hot Planes Advancing / cool planes receding – 2004 Afterhours
 * Crooklyn Dub Outernational – Certified Dope Vol. 4: Babylon's Burning (CD) Disco Lips – 2004 WordSound
 * Music For Plants (2xCD) Moss Garden – 2005 PerfectIfOn
 * Sprout: The Soundtrack From the Surf Movie by Thomas Campbell – "Of The Periphery" – 2005 Brushfire Records
 * Peoples – 2006 Bubble Core
 * 1110 – 2008 Afterhours (Japan)
 * ん – 2009 Afterhours (Japan) / 2010 HipHipHip (Europe)

title: HiM (American band)


text:
Talk:Cuniculture

Untitled
Shouldn't this be cuniculture? --Zundark 21:50 Jan 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * cuniculture, cunniculture', both are fine. Does that matter ?

 * How can cunniculture be fine? The Latin word for rabbit is cuniculus. The Latin word cunnus means something quite different (as in cunnilingus). --Zundark 14:32 Jan 19, 2003 (UTC)

yeah, i think this article is actually about something... else.---Stevert

 * is it a typo for bunniculture perhaps? :) Nevilley

Suggestions for Expansion
Please feel free to run with these (I will edit as well as I have time). Please include international aspect whenever possible Kerani (talk) 02:23, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * livestock used (ie, species)
 * Current extent & subsectors (meat/fur) of the industry (a table might be nice)
 * history - Done Kerani (talk) 08:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
 * current trends
 * developed nations vs developing nations
 * international trade
 * techniques & methods (to include preferred breeds)
 * pictures would be awesome
 * Material has been cut & pasted from domestic rabbit to use as a framework but still needs expanding, internationalizing, and clarificationKerani (talk) 12:37, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Unsourced claim
The most recent edit ( 19:34, 17 September 2015 2620:72:0:22c:f4d0:a98d:5e07:f14e ) changed the last line in the intro paragraph from "The distribution of rabbit farming varies around the globe, and while it is on the decline in some nations, in others it is expanding." to "For the past decade, world champion rabbit fanciers have used cages constructed with walnut frame and tungsten wire." This is uncited, and a cursory Google search finds no corroboration. In addition, it appears to be bunk, on its face. I only took the time to look it up because it seemed so odd. Is there any reason not to undo this edit? I felt I should ask, but given how little talk there is on this page and that the post has been up for over three months without attention, I will probably revert it anyway myself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.179.116.155 (talk)

Agreed, I also saw that. Just fixed it. HoworHow 06:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HoworHow (talk • contribs)

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title: Talk:Cuniculture