Hugh Grant ‘almost died’ while filming beloved 90s movie
It’s been revealed that Hugh Grant came close to losing his life while filming iconic 90s film Four Weddings And A Funeral.
The hit rom-com from director Mike Newell and written by Richard Curtis sees Grant’s character come to terms with a series of deaths in a friendship group, as well as reconsidering his feelings towards falling in love.
Newell has revealed that things nearly ended in tragedy on the set of the film, with Grant coming close to a fatal crash for a scene towards the beginning of the movie.
Speaking to the Guardian, Newell said: “That scene on the motorway, for some reason, Hugh was actually driving. He shouldn’t have been but he was.”
Andie MacDowell and Grant in Four Weddings ()
The sequence sees Grant’s character and friend Scarlett, played by Charlotte Coleman, racing to make a wedding in time.
“They were within inches of backing at full speed into a truck that was coming at them,” Newell went on to say.
“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, the crisis was averted and Grant went on to give one of his most recognisable performances.
Grant has spoken about the nature of the film before, admitting last year that he thought it would be a flop.
(JC Olivera/Getty Images)
The news came about after Sam Neill, who starred alongside Grant in Sirens, released his memoir Did I Ever Tell You This?.
In that, he wrote: “I had dinner in London with Hugh Grant soon after Sirens. I asked him what he’d been up to. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘a piece of complete crap called Four Weddings and a Funeral. Mike Newell wouldn’t know comedy if he tripped over it. Disaster. Absolute and utter rubbish.’ “
He added: “Well, that rubbish helped to make him exactly the kind of star I guess Universal meant back then.”
Grant admitted it was true, releasing a statement via IndieWire saying: “I love Sam and miss him, and it’s true that we were all sure we’d made a giant turkey till the film had its first previews. I was clearly wrong and the film changed my life.”
It went on: “It was the beginning of a happy friendship with Richard Curtis, and I’ve always had the greatest respect for Mike Newell who taught me things I use to this day.”
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