West London, 1995: a roguish young British actor by the name of Hugh Grant is reckoning with a stratospheric—and buzzy, bumpy, and tabloid-foddering—rise. As noted by Candace Bushnell in her Vogue profile when she meets the actor in the enclaves of Soho House, Grant is 18 films in with a series of stellar turns (Maurice, The Remains of the Day), his breakout (Four Weddings and a Funeral), and some that he describes as “Euro-puddings”—“I’m the first to admit that I’m the master of the stinker. I must have done a dozen in my life,” he says. Grant spends his days dodging the English press, loved up with Elizabeth Hurley, and preparing for what was then his next role in the mighty adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.
With the straight-down-the-line questions from Bushnell, he delivers. On being the next Cary Grant? “Yawny question.” On his slipperiness? “I don’t believe in truth. I believe in style.” It’s an enchanting glimpse at the charm and rigor that’s made Grant the sauciest, celebrated actor he is today.
A couple of years later and Vogue meets him once again—but this time, it’s to get to know his Bridget Jones co-star Renée Zellweger. It’s 2001 and this magazine has flown the Texan actor to Paris amid the film’s frenzy for Oscar de la Renta’s Balmain show. Grant and Zellweger’s friendship pulsates through the profile. Grant, who plays the “silver-tongued slimebag” Daniel Cleaver to Zellweger’s Chardonnay-drinking everywoman, describes her as “the most unqueeny, untantrumy, easy, nice, well-adjusted person.”
A lot can change in 25 years. So as Zellweger slipped into Jones’ shoes for the fourth time to star in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, who better to unpick more than two decades of friendship, flirting, and fashion than with one of her greatest and naughtiest pals? And this time, Hugh is in British Vogue’s seat as the sardonic, sometimes sweet, always silly journalist of choice for a dishy conversation.
This weekend has been all about the bold raging on of London Fashion Week. Revisiting these three stories from the archives, that articulate the best of British talent, charm, and charisma, feels all the more apt. |
