Hugh Grant jokes that his kids ‘don’t get fed’ unless they like ‘Paddington 2’
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Watch: Hugh Grant discusses possible Paddington return
All children should like Paddington 2, but Hugh Grant has revealed that he had to do some convincing to get his own kids on board.
The 60-year-old star was asked about his role as thespian baddie Phoenix Buchanan in an interview on Late Night with Seth Meyers to promote his new thriller miniseries The Undoing.
Grant declared that director Paul King “made a masterpiece” with Paddington 2 and that he was “proud to be in it”.
Read more: Grant plays Paddington character for four-year-old fan with cancer
When Meyers spoke about how much his own family had enjoyed it, Grant admitted his children were a little harder to convince.
“I set up a special screening for them. That takes a whole cinema, I have hundreds of children,” he said. “I got them in there and they pretty much hated it.”
Grant added: ”They kept whispering to me: ‘Why are you in it so much?’
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“I make them like it now. They have to watch it every night and tell me how good I am, otherwise they don’t get fed.”
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Grant discussed working with the bear, voiced by Ben Whishaw, and revealed that his nonagenarian father was so convinced by the CGI that he asked him if the critter was real.
He said there were three options to act with on the set — a short actress, a “creepy” bear’s head on a stick, or just the stick.
The actor said that his Paddington role made things very uncomfortable when he later had to work with Whishaw on the dark drama A Very English Scandal.
Grant played 1970s MP Jeremy Thorpe, who was charged with conspiring to murder Norman Josiffe — played by Whishaw — after the pair had a homosexual relationship.
“To have to basically rape him and then try to kill him for the whole autumn of 2017 was weird,” said Grant. “It didn’t feel right.”
Read more: Grant imagines heart-breaking Notting Hill scenario
Grant has said he is done with charming characters and is taking on another helping of dark material with The Undoing, in which he and Nicole Kidman play a husband and wife trapped in a cycle of death and secrets.
Meanwhile, there’s still very little information on the upcoming Paddington 3, but director/co-writer Paul King and his writing partner Simon Farnaby have both stepped down.
Watch: Trailer for Paddington 2