Hugh Grant was almost involved in a near-fatal incident while filming Four Weddings And A Funeral, the director has revealed.
The British actor played the lead in Richard Curtis’ hit rom-com, which follows a group of friends navigating love and loss in the mid-1990s.
In a new Guardian interview to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the film, director Mike Newell recalled one scene which could have ended in disaster.
Recalling the opening scene, in which Hugh’s character and his best friend Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman) are racing to make it to the first of the titular weddings, the director said: “That scene on the motorway, for some reason, Hugh was actually driving. He shouldn’t have been but he was.”
He continued: “They were within inches of backing at full speed into a truck that was coming at them.
“I suddenly saw the whole film collapsing in front of me, and what I had done was engineer the death of the leading man on the motorway.”
Thankfully, no one was hurt filming the scene, and the movie went on to set Hugh up as the king of rom-coms.
However, in a separate interview with The Times, writer Richard revealed that the British star wasn’t even his first choice for the role, despite the pair later going on to collaborate again on Notting Hill and Love Actually.
“The director, Mike Newell, took the casting unbelievably seriously,” he said. “I argued hard against Hugh Grant.
“I had in my mind a less glamorous person because I’m a very unglamorous person. So I was thinking Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, John Gordon Sinclair. I argued for Alan Rickman.”
But the writer eventually discovered that it was a difficult task to find an actor with Hugh’s unique qualities, recalling: “We interviewed about 70 other people and it turned out that the combination you need of charm and wit to make it funny was very hard to find. And Hugh had it instantly.
“He gives the impression of being feckless and that he can’t act, but he worked so hard on every line.”
While these days no one is doubting the Paddington star’s status as a screen legend, Hugh made a surprising admission about these rom-com roles earlier this year.
Speaking to former co-star Drew Barrymore on her US talk show, the actor confessed that he “never felt comfortable” doing his famous romantic comedies.
“I don’t know about you, but I prefer more of a mask. I want to be someone else,” he said. “Then it frees me up and then I quite like acting.”