I had been to see A Clockwork Orange, which had a ban I was 14 years old and you had to be 21 years old at that time to go and see that X-rated movie. On his father attempting to shoot him when he was a teenager So now I speak to her on Skype once a week. When I finally had a face-to-face with my mother about this 20 years ago, she broke down in front of me and said three magic words: She said, "Please forgive me." And the power of that was astonishing and remains so, and led to the complete rapprochement that I have with her. It was the thing that was the catalyst for starting to keep a diary, because I thought the only way that I can keep a record of this and feel sane was to write it down, and so I've been a lifelong diarist ever since. I certainly couldn't tell my father or my mother what I'd seen, because I was supposed to be asleep on the back seat. I was 10 years old and I knew that what I was seeing I shouldn't be seeing. On witnessing his mother have sex with another man in the car while he was in the backseat (which was portrayed in Grant's autobiographical film Wah-Wah )
in siSwati it means "all the world in one." When I was there, there were only 300 students, 27 nationalities and many political dissidents from South Africa had sent their children to be educated in the school, because it was multiracial and multi-denominational as well, so that was the basis of the school and has absolutely informed my whole life. I went to a school called Waterford Kamhlaba, and "Kamhlaba" is what the king of Swaziland called the school, because. On how his secondary school in Swaziland has informed his life I wasn't aware in my childhood that there was a division. So right from my first year at school it was "mixed-race," as it was called then. He said, "Even though you're born here, you are essentially a guest in this country and you have to learn the local language in order to be able to justify why we're here." And he spoke absolutely fluently.Īnd in 1963, when I began school, it was the first time that black Swati children were amongst white colonial children. On growing up in Swaziland, which became independent from Britain when he was 10īecause of my father's job, he inculcated my brain from a very, very young age. So what is autobiographical is that my observation as a kid and as a teenager was that the concentration that alcoholics have or drunks have when they're trying to cross a room and not fall over or bump into things or convince the world that they are sober - that concentration and focus is what I latched onto. If anything, he is somebody that gets beaten up by people, as happens in the story. On playing Jack Hock in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, who is an alcoholic "It just means that the flurry that's going on at the moment is something that is like a roller-coaster ride and I'm enjoying and savoring every minute of it." Interview Highlights "Every time I try to plan something or assume that something's going to happen it never works out like that," he says. Though Grant has been nominated for a SAG Award and a Golden Globe for his performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, he tries not to have any unrealistic expectations for his next role. Grant says he got into the role by drawing on memories of his own father, who was alcoholic: "My father was somebody who was very charming by day, and then literally Jekyll and Hyde, very violent, by night, when he was drunk." Grant plays an alcoholic in the film, which is ironic considering the actor himself is allergic to alcohol.
Now he co-stars with Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me?, which tells the story of a broke writer who makes money by forging literary letters.
The self-described "lifelong character actor" has appeared in countless TV shows and movies, including Withnail and I, Downton Abbey and Girls.
But despite his persistent interest in acting, Grant says, "What wasn't clear is that anybody from could possibly make a living and pursue this as a career seriously - that was what was deemed ludicrous."Īs it happens, Grant has achieved what once seemed impossible.