Hugh Grant Insists Comment About 'Hating' This Film Was A Joke: 'I'm Thrilled With It'

Hugh Grant has admitted that having his words twisted in the online media is one of the main reasons he “loathes” the internet.

During a new interview with Variety, the Heretic star recalled his recent appearance in the screen musical Wonka, in which he played an especially straight-talking Oompa Loompa.

While promoting the film, he and his colleagues were asked how they found the experience of making it.

“Everyone said, ‘Yes, we loved it. We loved it. We loved it’, and when they got to me, just for a comedy moment at the end, I said, ‘I hated it’,” he explained.

“But on the web, it’s become a fact that I hated making that film,” Hugh continued. “And I didn’t hate it all; I loved making it. I’m absolutely thrilled with it.”

He then lamented: “That’s what the internet does. It scrubs humour, and it scrubs context to create little clickbait moments. It’s one of the reasons I loathe it with such violence, really.” 

Hugh’s memorable role in Wonka forms a major part of what he’s come to affectionately refer to as the “freak show” era of his career, which has seen him break away from the romantic comedy projects that made him famous in the 1990s and 2000s, to play more experimental roles.

These characters have included a right-leaning historian in Netflix’s Death To… series, Tony The Tiger in Unfrosted, a thespian with a vendetta in Paddington 2 and a sinister homebody obsessed with games in his latest movie, the horror thriller Heretic.

Hugh has credited The Wachowskis’ epic Cloud Atlas with steering his career in a new direction, after one particular box office “failure” put an end to his string of rom-coms.

Elsewhere in his Variety interview, however, Hugh insisted that this particular romantic comedy still holds a special place in his heart, even if it didn’t go down too well with audiences at the time.