Hugh Grant has adopted several habits and exercises to relax in front of a camera. The British actor admitted to BBC Radio 2 that he particularly dreads scenes where his characters don’t speak.
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Hugh Grant has revealed he listens to classical music on the way to a shoot to relax.
The “Notting Hill” star adopted this habit when playing politician Jeremy Thorpe, a big fan of the genre, in the 2018 mini-series “A Very English Scandal”.
He then discovered that classical music had a relaxing effect on him.
“I have to listen to a lot of Beethoven and do some really stupid breathing before I can feel completely calm in front of the camera, which is what I’ve been looking for for 40 years,” he recently told BBC Radio 2. “It’s This is why, on the way to work and at work, I listen to a lot of classical music.
The 64-year-old actor said he began performing breathing exercises almost two decades ago on the advice of a therapist after suffering panic attacks on film sets. “It’s weird, you do it for 5 to 10 minutes and then suddenly you start to reach a state (of calm),” he remarked.
Hugh Grant finds it particularly distressing not to have a text when going in front of the camera.
“I like talking, it relaxes me, and I dread the moments when someone says to me: ‘OK Hugh, it’s just you reacting, there are no words, we’re just going to zoom in on your face for a minute,’” he confided. “It’s difficult. I can do the first 10 seconds and traditionally my jaw starts to tense up and I start to think, “What is going on here?” But I think I’m getting there now.”
The actor’s new film, “Heretic”, will be released on November 27 in France.
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