Hugh Grant said on Monday that mobile phones had made movie sets “so weird now” because performers were no longer drunk and “in love with each other.”
Hugh Grant made the remarks on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” while advertising his new film, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” which is based on the popular tabletop role-playing game.
After Grant admitted he had never played or comprehended the game on which the film is based, Stephen Colbert asked if any of his co-stars tried to force him to play it.
“I think Chris Pine occasionally tried. There was talk of it, but I don’t know,” Grant said. “Films are so weird now. They are weird because, in the old days, by the end of the second week, you were all getting drunk in the evening and having dinner and falling in love with each other and all of that.”
He added: “All of that stopped because of telephones. Everyone goes home and looks at Twitter. It’s so sad.”
Hugh Grant Video
Colbert then asked: “So if there weren’t telephones on set, there will be more affairs going on?”
Hugh Grant responded: “Yeah, I think so. You know, Tarantino banned telephones from his set, and quite right, too. And the people there, they do all shag each other, so I’m told.”
Shag is a slang phrase for sex in the United Kingdom.
Grant portrays a con artist who targets the main characters, played by Michelle Rodriguez, Sophia Lillis, Justice Smith, Regé-Jean Page, and Pine in “Dungeons & Dragons,” which hits theatres on Friday.
Grant faced backlash earlier this month after a video of an awkward interview he conducted with Ashley Graham at this year’s Academy Awards went viral.
Grant didn’t offer engaging answers to Graham’s questions during a preshow interview on the red carpet at the Oscars, and he appeared bored.
While some viewers called Grant “rude and dismissive” and said the whole thing was “pretty weird,” others defended the “Love Actually” actor, saying he was trying to be British, but his American interviewer missed it.
Drew Barrymore, who costarred with Grant in the 2007 rom-com “Music and Lyrics,” subsequently stated on her talk show that Grant is just like this.
“If you know Hugh, that is his way of loving you,” she said a week later on “The Drew Barrymore Show.” “It’s also funny because there’s this thing going around with him and Ashley Graham on the red carpet, and people are like, ‘Oh, he’s such a curmudgeon, and she’s so thrown,’ and I’m like, ‘No, that’s Hugh Grant.'”
“You think you’re getting this charming movie star, and what you really get is grumpy Hugh,” Barrymore added. “And then you fall for grumpy Hugh.”
She also admitted that it “took me a second” to work out Grant’s sense of humor.
“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” will be released in theatres on Friday.
