Hugh Grant

My contemporary art collection began with just needing to put things on the wall. I was looking around my Victorian house thinking, 'What would be the coolest is contemporary art - it will make me look young and interesting.' I'm more than 80 percent skeptical of the whole thing.

For any new technology there is always controversy and there always some fear associated with it. I think that's just the price of being first sometimes.

I look at life and I see some very happy relationships, but I also see the vast majority as not being that happy.

Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I know that syndrome. I fancy offices, so there must be something wrong with me. Even the window cleaner intrigues me. It's a very sexy environment.

I have known a few good marriages, but very few. And others look to me like they're pretty miserable. I don't really think that's a recipe for happiness.

A free press is the cornerstone of democracy; there is no question about that.

There was a phase in my career in my late 20s and 30s when I was doing strange, arty-farty Euro films that were, you could tell, never had much chance of any release anywhere in the world.

I think the part of my acting career where I've been more successful, I've been incredibly cushioned. People are much too nice to you. You go into politics, and people are absolutely brutal. You've got proper enemies, and they're vicious. It's very invigorating.

Although I'm largely doing other things in life, it's very nice occasionally to put my toe back in the waters of show business.

Frankly, I think I'm marvelous in rehearsal! Then you turn the camera on, and it gets stiff and tight. And then you trudge back to your trailer feeling sad. That's been my experience of film acting.

When I think about actors I know, I'd much rather hear about who they're shagging than what film they're doing next.

I don't do much acting anymore anyway, and not to work for 20th Century Fox is really the least of my worries.

I've certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I've accepted a part since then, because I've been given much better parts in films.

My laziness is really profound. I'm really interested in where it comes from - it almost feels chemical. And we've all got ADD now, short attention span and all that.

I'm very unrelaxed doing a newspaper interview.

I've always dreaded the sea - in fact, I get terribly seasick.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

When I finished my degree at Oxford, I went and acted for a bit. And I was appalling. And with each part, I thought, 'Well, that's embarrassing. I'd better do one more to show people I'm not that bad.' And, in fact, instead of a taking a year, that's gone on for 35 years.

Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made 'Maurice' in the 1980s, I've been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.

Do I think human beings are meant to be in 40-year-long monogamous, faithful, relationships? No, No, No. Whoever said they were? Only the Bible or something. No one ever said that was a good idea.

I dreaded the dance scene in 'Love Actually' more than having my teeth extracted.

It's always more fun to be an anti-hero. They're more interesting.

I wasn't aware I was trading on my good name; I've never had a good name.

Basically, my life is so boring, it's embarrassing.

Throughout my life, whenever I thought I'm dancing welI, I'm not.

'Notting Hill?' Does that poke fun at being British? Maybe it does. In 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' that's kind of the point: the clash of worlds, the unlikely combo of a respectable Englishman and a mob guy. If you take out the Britishness, you don't really have much.

With 2 movies opening this summer, I have no relaxing time at all. Whatever I have is spent in a drunken stupor.

My mother was a teacher.

I just don't believe in love at first sight anymore, even though I've based my whole career on the concept. In my experience, power, money and influence always attract the opposite sex. It's something that I've always exploited - with good results.

Something about teaching is curiously attractive, actually. I don't know what it is.

I used to dream about Gorbachev before he lost power. I'd go into a panic because I was meeting him, and I had nothing to wear. I'd ask my brother what to do, and he'd tell me to wear my dressing gown. I'd tell him I can't - it's too horrible. He'd tell me to wear his as well. So I'd meet Gorbachev wearing two dressing gowns.

I think there's something unromantic about marriage. You're closing yourself off.

But when you're a celebrity, you discover that you're no longer the pursuer, but the one being pursued. That's one of the disappointments I have had since becoming a single man.

It's really frightening, American food on the whole. That's what always strikes me, coming from Europe: There's just so much of it! Then you plop down in front of the TV and watch ads for Weight Watchers. 'Lose weight now!' Well, eat less!

I had a kiss with Raquel Welch's daughter - she was a very naughty kisser.

All I know is for a number of years, if someone like me called police for a burglary, a mugging, or something happened to me, chances are that a photographer or reporter would turn up before a policeman.

At home, I hardly ever leave London. I don't like the countryside in England.

I'm not a hopeless romantic. I'm quite the reverse. I'm a nasty piece of work, an ego maniac.

There were various turning points, but the main one at the beginning was that I was going off to do another degree in the history of art. I would have ended up as some art historian at Sotheby's or something.

The reason I turn down 99% of a hundred, I mean a thousand, scripts is because romantic comedies are often very romantic but seldom very funny.

Plus, teaching brings home to you very fast that you actually know nothing. I didn't realize that before.

I get more satisfaction out of comedy stuff. I'm a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

I cling to the fantasy that I could have done something more creative. Like actually writing a script, or writing a book. But the awful truth is that I... probably can't!

'The Lair of the White Worm' is quite a strange film. It's difficult to be good when you're saying lines that have been translated from Spanish to English by someone who speaks French.

I was fat-shamed the other day on a British newspaper. The headline was 'Four Bellies and a Turkey Neck.' They weren't wrong. I looked shocking.

I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.

I certainly hated actors and, more importantly, they hated me.

Like lots of people who say, 'I'm going to write a novel,' it's actually more comfortable to think I could write a novel than to discover that you can't.

The only reason my work seems to be eclectic up to a certain period is because I was a failure as an actor.

I think I'm rather young and sprightly, but then you see pictures of yourself and think, 'Who is that old man?' and I realise I'm not as young as I thought I was.

I'm quite jealous of my Scottish relations, in whose culture everyone, in a Jane Austen kind of way, got married very young, when you're too young to be cynical or jaded and just started having children.

I don't think there's much point in putting me a deep, dark, heavy, emotional film because there are people who do it so much better than I do.

I get very annoyed when people think I'm nice or diffident or a polite English gentleman. I'm a nasty piece of work, and people should know that.

And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee... It's the slave quality that I find very alluring.

If you have a smothering parent, the effect it can apparently have on a child is to give them, in equal doses, a sense of too much self-esteem, because they are mummy's little princess or prince, and low self-esteem. It affects future relationships.

The angry Scot is a cliche not without some foundation. That's the Lowland Scot - I'm a Highlander. We're particularly lovely and charming.

If you do too much acting in a lead part in a feature film where you're 40 ft. high, it's rather unattractive. You can see the acting. And it's actually the right thing to do to bring as much of yourself, I believe, to the part as you possibly can - to minimize the amount of theatrical stuff that you need to do.

I don't have any particular burning desire to go back to being cuddly. Not really.

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed.

As it is, I have a limited range as an actor - light comedy. I have never been a fan of romantic comedies, and yet that is what I have ended up mostly doing.

I don't want to see the end of popular print journalism.

I'm a laugh tart. I make no secret of that fact.

Women are frightening. If you get to 41 as a man, you're quite battle-scarred.

I had Courtney Love's left bosom out of her dress on my plate in front of me. It was extraordinary. I didn't know where to look.

I'm not a great believer in marriages as an institution, or even in very long term relationships. I'm not sure we're built that way.

And film acting is incredibly tedious, just by its nature. It's incredibly, mind numbingly slow.

The moral of filmmaking in Britain is that you will be screwed by the weather.

I think that's the whole point of Bridget Jones. It's all about that it's okay to fail.

I'm horrible in the mornings. I'm grumpy.

Most actors really love it, that's what they want to do. They burn to do it. And so they'll read a script and think, that's an interesting part. And because they love acting, that blinds them to the fact that the rest of it is pretentious nonsense, which it very often is.

I quite like Pilates now. I have a Pilates girl in every city.

It's very rare in life to be sure about something - particularly when it's an issue.

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

Courage is soldiers fighting on the front line, or people living on the bread line.

Neither Elizabeth or I are keen to do a real-life couple on the screen. It's not very electric.

This guy Simon Helberg, who's in 'Florence Foster Jenkins,' I might have been vaguely patronizing to him because he hadn't done films before. Gradually, you realize, not only is the guy a much bigger star than me, he's maybe the richest man I've ever met.

I frequently dream of having tea with the Queen.

You know everyone loves to be the villain.

The truth is, I'd never seen a Cary Grant film. Since then I have watched his stuff and it's astounding, but I don't see any similarity between us. Except for the fact that I'm told he used to wear ladies' underwear, which is something I also do.

Theater has always been much more fun. You get a laugh, and it's really encouraging.

I think marriage is only necessary if you've got children. It's quite nice for them.

I think maybe in a way it gets worse because you come in with a real reputation and they've paid you lots of money and all that.

But I just know from experience that accent wise, even if you're an accent genius, crossing the Atlantic is the hardest thing in the world either way.

Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of acting: character acting and lead acting. And in my life, to begin with, in the 1980s, it was all character acting. And then when, by fluke, through 'Four Weddings', I got into doing lead parts, it's a completely different thing.

I used to pre-rehearse everything and then bring my pre-rehearsed performance to the set. Now, I'm learning to let it happen in the moment. American actors are much better at that than British actors. If I knew how to trust myself, I would have been much more relaxed. Maybe I would have less gray hairs today.

A lot of actors look at scripts and think, 'How will this stretch me as an actor?' But I always thought, 'Do I want to turn the page? Is this going to make people laugh?'

The emphasis in 'Notting Hill' was perhaps, I thought, slightly more on the romance than on the comedy. But I think 'Mickey Blue Eyes' is maybe slightly more on the comedy. And the tone on 'Mickey Blue Eyes,' it's a far sillier film.

Strangely enough I'm better on a stage. I love that I feel like I blossom in front of a whole bunch of people.

My whole history of being an actor is unusual and slightly disgraceful because it should be something you burn to do.

I suppose after 'Four Weddings' I was very busy for a bit, and I imagined that was my career, but I never had that thing of, 'I'm burning to be an actor. If I don't act, I'm not alive.' I've never had that.

I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say I think that being in a relationship is a natural state for a human being.

I have no doubt that I'd be a marvelous father. Maybe not when they're tiny, but when they're a little bit older, I think I'd be rather good.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

I always admire the French and the Italians who are very devoted to their marriages. They take them extremely seriously, but it is understood that there might be other visitors at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You just never boast about. They never say anything, but that's what keeps marriages together.

I don't particularly like babies. I don't mind them for about four minutes. That's my max. After that I can't quite see what everyone's fussing about.

Comedy is probably a way of dealing with anxiety. Sometimes it's a way of dealing with pain.

I have this absurd syndrome where I get these out-of-the-blue, pathetic panic attacks. It'll be in a very easy, simple scene when everything is going swimmingly, and then suddenly, bang, I'm shvitzing and can't remember my lines.

I'm such a chronic relativist, I can't hold down a strong opinion about many things long enough.

I've got four houses in my street. I live in two, and the others are empty. I'll buy more as they come up, because I think it would be great to have the entire street.

I slightly lost my enthusiasm for most acting, but I've done some little bits and pieces - curiosities.