Exclusive: Hugh’s Hidden Talent

Who’d have thought Hugh Grant would be a bundle of nerves over Bridget Jones? During a recent New York visit to talk about his role in Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks, Grant departed from the initial subject to confess his fears of facing the first read-through for Bridget Jones’ Diary and reveal that he is working on his own screenplay. “It’s always terrifying, and it’s pathetic,” he admitted of the rehearsals. “I don’t think you get used to it. Sitting around with everyone thinking, is the script going to work? And then ‘come on, Hugh, you’re the one who’s being paid all this money,’ and it’s not particularly funny, and it’s just dreadful.” Grant sang praise for his old Notting Hill mucker Richard Curtis, who is co-writing the script with Bridget author Helen Fielding. “He’s done a particularly good job of it. It should work,” Grant said. “I’m just hoping that someone else will be really, really bad, because that relaxes you.” He defended the casting of American Renee Zellweger: “I gather her accent is triumphant already, actually.” In a departure from his other Curtis-penned roles, Grant gets to be the bad boy. “She’s in love with her boss, who’s attractive but a bastard,” the actor says. “At the end of the film, she finds out that this other guy, who seemed to be a bit of a nerd, is in fact the man of her dreams.” In related cad news, Grant remains attached to the role of Will in Nick Hornby’s About A Boy. “It’s in play, yeah,” he confirmed. “We’re just trying to get the script right and talking to various directors. It’s a great book; it would be a great role.” He’s also working on his own screenplay, which was “coming along swimmingly” until he became distracted by other projects. He swears he’ll get back to it soon, as “it was looking quite promising.” The plot is secret, as Grant is “paranoid about it being stolen,” but he does disclose that “a lot of it takes place in France [during] the hot drought summer of 1976.” That was the year, Grant notes, that the British public had to share baths or forego them altogether. Perhaps he’ll clean up nicely. Empire Online correspondent: Rhonda Markowitz