Original-Cin Q&A: Hugh Grant’s Heretic Directors Talk About… Hugh Grant
By Chris Knight
I am now just one-degree removed from Hugh Grant, having interviewed the co-directors of his newest film Heretic at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. (The film is in theatres November 8).
I didn’t get to speak to Grant — I get it; he’s Hugh Grant and I’m not. But this was clearly the next best thing. The directors, already fans of the actor, have uncovered a whole new respect for his work behind the camera.
Scott Beck and Bryan Woods wrote and directed the film. Grant plays the seemingly kindly Mr. Reed, who welcomes Mormon missionaries Sister Paxton and Sister Barnes (Chloe East and Sophie Thatcher) into his suburban living room and — well, let’s be circumspect and say he messes with their heads. The key word in there is “seemingly.”
Beck, who like his co-director turned 40 this year, says he first saw Grant on the screen in those turn-of-the-century rom-coms — Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love, Actually — that made him a star but also suggested that his range might not be much greater than a kazoo.
“And yet,” says Beck, “I think there was a kind of a contrarian vibe. You're like, ‘Oh, he's incredibly charming on screen,’ but then you read interviews with him, and you're like. ‘This man is highly intelligent, highly skeptical about institutions.”
When they were casting the film, he says, “Hugh just popped right into mind as being like: ‘Oh, he's the perfect collision of those two things.’ The demand of this role, aside from having to memorize what is ostensibly a stage play in that amount of dialogue, is also having so many levers and gears that he can he can pull to make the audience feel incredibly comforted and incredibly uncomfortable at the same time, sometimes within like a 30-second gap. And he was somebody that is a master of that.”
Fortunately, Grant was up to the task, and signed on to make the film. Beck calls him “incredibly detailed in terms of his approach to creating a character, like down to every single word or every single line of dialogue. He wants to investigate that and make sure it feels authentic. And that's something that we value greatly, because it's the homework that you can do before you get on set, and then once you're on set, he kind of just unleashes it, and it feels very real and natural.”
Woods adds: “Hugh is a character actor in every sense of the word. And it was so funny working with him on set, because he was Mr. Reed all day. And then after we wrapped, you would see him get washed up and leave set. And you didn't recognize him, he went from Mr. Reed to Hugh, and he had a different posture, and he sounded different.”
He continues: “It was hard to process for us, because it was a reminder that, when he's performing, he is this person. And yes, I’ve never seen anything like it. Just such a tremendous actor.”
Lest that make Grant sound intimidatingly intense, Beck adds: “He's very generous and very kind as well. It sounds contradictory but you see him on set, and you work with him, and it absolutely starts to unlock and make sense. And part of it was his generosity towards Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, and the way that they were scene partners through and through. And even though, on screen, there's this antagonistic quality, you know, he was always there for them.”
The shoot had something of a special feel already, since it happened during the actors’ and writers’ strike, but they were in Vancouver and able to get strike waivers and keep going. “And so I think everybody just like really came together, in a way that felt very rare and special, to make this movie,” says Beck. “Because we were all happy to be working.”
Original-Cin Q&A: Hugh Grant’s Heretic Co-Stars Talk About… Hugh Grant
By Chris Knight
Hugh Grant was born in 1960, making him a late Baby Boomer or, if you like, a kind of cinematic big brother to Gen X moviegoers, who would have seen him leading the British rom-com invasion of the early 1990s and beyond.
But for Gen Z actors, Chloe East (born in 2001) and Sophie Thatcher (2000) there’s a different relationship.
“I feel like every mom's favourite actor is Hugh Grant,” says East, at the Toronto International Film Festival for the world premiere of Heretic, in which she plays one of two Mormon missionaries who make the mistake of knocking on Grant’s character’s door.
Thatcher (left) and East
She quickly adds: “And I can agree. I know why. Oddly enough, my last two movies I saw before shooting this — my last two Hugh Grant movies — were Dungeons & Dragons and Paddington 2, where he plays the villain in both of them.
“A lot of people asked me: like, it's crazy that he's playing a villain. I'm like, ‘No, it's not. Did you see Paddington 2?’ He's amazing. Yeah, I still think that's the best movie ever made.”
Thatcher, who plays the second missionary in this taut, three-handed thriller, has a similar take on the sexagenarian British star.
“I grew up with About a Boy, and I watched that movie so many times. It was one of my mom's favourite movies. So, I remember seeing him in that and I was like: He's a very serious actor. He's really good and very empathetic, and you just really feel for him on screen.”
There was some trepidation from both the young actors in working with him, although that probably also helped in crafting the films’ knife-edge tension.
“He was so specific in the rehearsals,” says East. “To the point where it's like, ‘The candle shouldn't be here. It needs to be three inches this way.’ And it made me think: ‘Am I overlooking these little decisions that I am making or shouldn't be making?’”
East remembers not even wanting to audition for Heretic, because the term “horror” had her thinking of screaming. “Growing up, I never did a lot of the horror auditions, because of the embarrassment of screaming in front of a casting director.”
Thatcher agrees. “I had a thing where I was like, ‘I don't know how to scream.’ I would lock myself in the basement and try to scream, and nothing would come out. Finally, I’d get on set and just be like, ‘Sophie, let it go.’”
An even bigger item of trepidation for both actors was the thought of playing Mormons. Both were actually raised in the Church.
“I thought, ‘There's no way I can do this,’” says East. “Because I grew up Mormon. I have a lot of Mormon friends. And I just would never want to do anything that is taking down someone's belief or faith or — also, honestly, a lot of missionaries in the movies are the butt of the joke, and they're these caricatures, and they're not real people.”
She continues: “So I just kind of thought I was walking into that or going to read something like that, but then after reading it, I was so impressed with how accurate and how respectful and how open the conversation was. Didn't matter if you grew up Mormon or not Mormon, or if you are religious or not religious, or anything. It really has this open conversation and this open exploration of faith and belief and all of it.”
Thatcher, a little more guarded, says: “I left the Church when I was pretty young, but just because, like, acting took over and I was working a lot when I was younger. But yeah, this script definitely opens up my mind.”
And while they may have been a little gun-shy at appearing in a horror movie, watching them is another matter.
“I love horror movies,” says Thatcher. “The first horror movie I ever saw was 28 Days Later, and it haunted me; I listen to the soundtrack all the time.”
East reaches back for an even more canonic title. “The Shining to me, it's just classic. Every time I see it. And, yeah, I mean, I don't need to talk about how good The Shining is; it’s kind of a perfect movie.”
She’s also a fan of First Reformed, Paul Shrader’s 2017 psychological thriller about a New England priest (Ethan Hawke) going through a crisis of faith. “It’s not really a horror, but it's very haunting,” she says, adding: “I just don't like jump scares.”
“They’re kind of pointless,” Thatcher agrees. “It’s shock value. Hollow.”