Hugh Grant says he wants to kill Ben Whishaw
Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw starred in BBC drama A Very English Scandal. (BBC)
Actor Hugh Grant has joked that he wants to kill Ben Whishaw, who he has worked with on a number of recent projects including BBC drama A Very English Scandal.
Grant, who also spoke about how far LGBT+ rights had come in his lifetime, was asked by entertainment website Collider about whether he felt that he “can’t get away” from Whishaw at the moment.
As well as A Very English Scandal, Grant starred in the 2017 film Paddington 2, for which Whishaw voiced the title character.
Hugh Grant as Jeremt Thorpe in the BBC’s A Very English Scandal. (BBC and Blueprint Television)
“He has to die,” Grant jested. “I haven’t quite managed to kill him yet, but I will.
“I don’t know. It’s bizarre that we keep working together, and that I always seem to want to kill him.”
Grant also starred in the 2012 film Cloud Atlas with Whishaw.
A Very English Scandal told the true story of former Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe and his relationship with lover Norman Scott in the 1960s, who Thorpe allegedly later tried to have killed to save his professional and personal reputation.
The three-part series won the inaugural drama awards at the PinkNews Awards 2018.
Elsewhere in the interview, Grant talked about how attitudes towards homosexuality have improved in recent years.
“It’s astonishing, what’s happened in our lifetime, really,” he told Collider.
“I can even remember my own parents, when I was a boy, if the subject of homosexuality came up, my parents were nice people but they’d say, “We don’t want to talk about that. It’s horrid.”
Ben Whishaw has worked with Hugh Grant on a number of projects. (Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for BFI)
“That was the attitude in the ‘60s, and early ‘70s. It’s amazing how far we’ve come.”
Grant praised Russell T. Davis for writing A Very English Scandal, adding that producers on the show were “very keen” for Norman Scott to be played by a gay actor (Whishaw).
The star also discussed his sex scenes with Whishaw, saying: “A gay love scene isn’t any more awkward than doing a straight one.”
Grant previously opened up about his sex scenes with Whishaw in an interview with PinkNews.
“There we were one Sunday morning, we did our whole love story in a day… Just went for it,” he told PinkNews. “I got a rash—I went home to my kids with a rash from Ben’s beard.”
