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Hugh Grant • Actor

About an eternal boy...

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- In About A Boy, based on Nick Hornby's best-seller, Europe's favourite batchelor (almost) plays himself

Women will forgive Hugh Grant just about anything and readily stand in line hoping against hope for a look, a smile or even a word from this self-effacing quintessential Englishman. His latest film, About a boy, (a UK/US/French co-production) based on Nick Hornby´s best seller, could have been written for Mr Grant in mind. He plays a trendy single who discovers an endless supply of potential girlfriends amongst north London´s large population of single mothers. His singular strategy is based on his pretending to be a single father himself.
Grant hides his intelligence behind a screen of clever one-liners and intelligent women just gawp when caught in his bright blue beams.
Grant came to the Taormina BNL FilmFest to receive the Diamond Award, a valuable but ever-so-slightly feminine bracelet, «it matches the little white tennis skirt I always wear when playing tennis,» said the unfazed star to a gawping audience of 6000 massed in the town´s world famous Greek Amphitheatre.
Hugh Grant, one of the world´s 100 sexiest stars, is no newcomer to scandal after his little encounter with Divine Brown and the Los Angeles police department´s finest gave him the front page of just about every media publication in the world and contributed to the end of his long-time love affair with business partner, Elizabeth Hurley (they are co-owners of Simian Films). He has learned to live without privacy. In About a Boy, directed by the Weitz brothers (American Pie), Grant plays a trendy (something he hotly denies being in his private life) and independently wealthy young man-about-north London who becomes the (very) reluctant father figure to the 9-year old-son of a suicidal single mother.
A frisson of excitement passes through the room when one brave soul sums up the courage to ask Grant why he always seems to play the same sort of character. «What can I do? As an actor, I have my limitations and one of my next films will be directed by the man who wrote Four Weddings....» Grant is also scheduled to play a British Prime Minister loosely based on a certain Mr Tony Blair currently of 10, Downing Street...

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