Hugh Grant: I’m Out Of Show Business (Exclusive)

20 years on after winning a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, Hugh Grant has said he’s thrown in the towel on show business, telling Yahoo Movies that he no longer actively seeks out acting jobs.

"I’m not out there looking for films," explains Grant as he promotes his new film ‘The Rewrite’, “On the whole, I’m out of show business.”

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He also says he vigorously discourages friends looking to go into acting from following in his footsteps.

"It’s miserable, it’s a very cruel world, no-one should go into it," he adds, "I’m always getting cousins and friends, and daughters and sons of friends…wanting to talk about going into acting and I always say just don’t do it. At all. It’s brutal."

Above: Marisa Tomei plays an ambitious mature student opposite Hugh in ‘The Rewrite’

While he may be quitting the glitzy side of showbiz, which is probably a wise move after taking on the tabloids with his Hacked Off campaign, Hugh says he won’t retire from acting completely and has another film lined for the Spring which is “definitely not a romantic comedy.”

He’s also due to appear in Guy Ritchie’s ‘Man From UNCLE’ movie next year, which he describes as “stylish” and “cool”, even if his role as the spies’ boss Waverley, is only a minor one.

He does worry about leaving the world of comedy behind though admitting that his previous ventures into other genres in films like ‘Cloud Atlas’, in which he played (amongst other things) a heavily tattooed cannibal, haven’t fared well at the box office.

"I thought [‘Cloud Atlas’] was amazing. Those are the bravest film-makers in the world, the Wachowski pair, and I think it’s an amazing film."

"I don’t know, it’s frustrating to me. Every time I’ve done something outside the genre of light comedy, the film fails to find an audience at the box office, and sadly ‘Cloud Atlas’ never really found the audience it deserved."

'The Rewrite', in which Hugh plays a frustrated screenwriter who takes up a teaching position to pay the bills, is in cinemas now.

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Image credit: Lionsgate/Warner Bros.