Guy Ritchie’s 2020 film The Gentleman features Hugh Grant, an English actor best known for starring in ‘90s romantic comedies. After various setbacks, Grant has managed to sustain a solid career, despite no longer be a bankable lead for rom-coms. So, why isn’t Grant a leading man any more, and why hasn’t he appeared in many films in the past decade?
In pop culture, most people know Grant for his ‘90s filmography. After landing smaller roles in ‘80s British films like White Mischief and The Lair of the White Worm, he secured a supporting role in James Ivory’s The Remains of the Day. By 1994, a lead role in Four Weddings and a Funeral established Grant as a well-known romantic comedy star, and the subsequent 1995 film Sense and Sensibility made him even more popular, despite a highly-publicized 1995 arrest involving a Hollywood prostitute. Over the next several years, mainstream hits like Mickey Blue Eyes and Notting Hill elevated Grant into the next level of stardom. Through it all, partner and actress Elizabeth Hurley stayed by his side, though they would later divorce. Since the mid-2000s, Grant’s career trajectory hasn’t been the same.
Grant began the 21st century with five consecutive box office hits, making him one of the biggest movie stars in the world. And whereas films like Two Weeks Notice and About a Boy aren’t remembered by most as modern classics, romantic comedies like Bridget Jones's Diary and Love Actually are indeed still popular nearly two decades later. So, why exactly did Grant fall off the map? It seems that he simply wanted to challenge himself with meatier roles.
In 2019, Grant reflected about not making "more interesting decisions" during his peak romantic comedy phase (via The Hollywood Reporter). For example, rom-com fans recognize the actor for portraying charming, witty and perpetually nervous characters, like Grant's role in Love Actually — an archetype that would later be embraced by American actor Jesse Eisenberg, most notably in The Social Network. Grant’s evolution can be directly connected to the 2006 black comedy American Dreamz, a film that allowed the English actor to show a different side as Martin “Tweedy” Tweed. While American Dreamz didn’t become a cultural phenomenon, Grant received critical acclaim for his performance. After appearing in two more romantic comedies (Music and Lyrics, and Did You Hear About the Morgans?), he essentially slowed down and took a career break.
In the past decade, Grant has indeed pursued more diverse roles. He played six different characters in the 2012 drama Cloud Atlas, but the film was a commercial flop. For the first time in Grant’s career, he didn’t have the clout that comes with a recent hit. And pop culture trends had certainly changed in the last decade with the rise of social media platforms like Twitter.
At 52 years of age, Grant was no longer the ideal leading man for a romantic comedy geared towards younger demographics (although he still was cast in Marc Lawrence’s The Rewrite). Since then, Grant hasn’t appeared in a proper romantic comedy, and has been more selective with his roles. Oddly enough, Grant is once again on a commercial hot streak after Florence Foster Jenkins and Paddington 2. And though he isn’t the primary star of The Gentleman, it appears that Hugh Grant is taking the opportunity to once again showcase a different side, this time as a scheming underworld figure.