Hugh Grant Took On A Role That Revived His Deepest Fear: What Made Him Star In Heretic After Decades Of Avoiding Horror?

Hugh Grant and rom-coms were a match made in movie heaven. The floppy-haired charmer ruled the ’90s with Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones’s Diary. His bumbling, awkward-yet-smooth persona made him the ultimate leading man. But there comes a time when even the king of romance must hang up his crown. And when that time came, Grant took a wild left turn.

Goodbye, lovestruck bookshop owner. Hello, eccentric oddball. He went full throttle into quirky and villainous roles. From the theatrical Phoenix Buchanan in Paddington 2 to a scheming private investigator in The Gentlemen, he reinvented himself brilliantly. His recent roles in Wonka and Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted prove he’s having fun—and audiences love it.

But there was one genre he avoided like the plague: horror. His only brushes with the spooky side were The Lair of the White Worm and Night Train to Venice—both from the early ‘90s. After that? Not a single ghost, demon, or slasher in sight. Turns out that Grant has a pretty solid reason. In an interview with Associated Press, the now 64-year-old admitted:

“I can’t. They’re too frightening for me. I watched “The Exorcist” when I was too young, and I’ve been in counseling ever since. I watched one by mistake recently, which was “Midsommar.” I thought it looked like a jolly, Swedish comedy.”

However, his wife is also on the same boat. The actor said: “I put it on one evening for my Swedish wife who needed cheering up, and she’s still very, very traumatized.”

Yet, somehow, he ended up starring in Heretic. Playing the creepy Mr. Reed, he finally checked “horror movie” off his to-do list. And guess what? It worked. The film made over four times its budget, and Grant even landed a Golden Globe nomination. Maybe horror isn’t so wrong after all. So, will we see him scaring audiences again? If the role is juicy enough, probably. But one thing’s for sure—he won’t be watching The Exorcist anytime soon.

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