Hugh Grant Will Play An Oompa Loompa, And Twitter Has Some Pretty Sweet Jokes

Elyse Wanshel
·3 min read
Hugh Grant at the Los Angeles premiere
Hugh Grant at the Los Angeles premiere

Hugh Grant at the Los Angeles premiere "Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" in March.

It’s time to redefine the meaning of orange crush.

Hugh Grant — who built his career in the 1980s and ’90s playing romantic leads — has been taking on a lot of interesting roles in the past few years that have ranged from playing detective Benoit Blanc’s husband in “Glass Onion” to being an expert eye roller on the Oscars red carpet.

But it seems that Grant’s wildest role was revealed Tuesday when producers announced at CinemaCon 2023 in Las Vegas that he would be playing an Oompa Loompa in the upcoming Willy Wonka prequel movie “Wonka” starring Timothée Chalamet as the future chocolatier.

In extended footage played at the event, Wonka is shown meeting his first ever Oompa Loompa, who is played by Grant and is trapped in “a tiny glass jar,” Variety reports. According to the outlet, Wonka then appears to recruit Grant’s little candy peddler to keep his chocolate factory running. Variety also says the movie includes singing and dancing numbers, not unlike the original 1971 film.

Although this extended footage has not yet been released publicly, when news of Grant’s casting hit Twitter, many appreciated the pure imagination.

And, of course, given that Twitter is a never-ending gobstopper of snark, users also had a few solid jokes: