‘Richard Curtis on steroids’: Hugh Grant thinks Love Actually is ‘a bit psychotic’

Hugh Grant has said that Richard Curtis’s script for Love Actually is “a bit psychotic”.

The Notting Hill star appears in the 2003 Christmas ensemble romcom as the British prime minister who falls in love with an employee (Martine McCutcheon).

On Tuesday (29 November), Grant was interviewed as part of Diane Sawyer’s ABC special The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later.

The 62-year-old spoke about writer Curtis’s script for the film, calling it “a bit psychotic” and adding that it is “Richard on steroids”.

“But the thing is with him, what you have to remember is when he writes about love, he means it,” Grant added. “And that is quite rare.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Grant admitted that he and wife Anna Eberstein had recently “drunkenly” watched bits of the film with fresh eyes.

“It comes from the heart – it’s true,” Grant said.

“I did drunkenly watch a bit of Love Actually a few months ago with my wife, and she was the one who said, ‘Oh look, it’s all about pain, it’s all about suffering.’”

He also opened about filming the now-famous dance scene where he, as the prime minister, dances around 10 Downing Street to “Jump” by The Pointer Sisters.

“I saw it in the script and I thought, ‘Well, I’ll hate doing that’,” Grant recalled. “I didn’t fancy doing the dance at all, let alone rehearsing it.”

Curtis said: “I think he was hoping I’d get ill or something and we’d say, ‘Oh, well, what a shame, we’ll have to lose that dancing sequence.’”

But he explained that there had been a “contractual obigation” for Grant to perform the scene, jokingly described by the actor as a “contractual guillotine”.

Sawyer’s special also featured interview wit cast members Emma Thompson, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Olivia Olson and a message from Martine McCutcheon.

The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later is available to stream on Wednesday 30 November on Hulu in the US.