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Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East are dishing on their new religious-horror movie “Heretic” in a sit-down with “Extra’s” Terri Seymour.
Hugh is also returning to the “Bridget Jones” franchise for the fourth movie, “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy,” which is out February 12, 2025.
That role is a departure from his sinister Mr. Reed character in “Heretic,” and Hugh quipped of the lighter fare, “I have done a week on the new ‘Bridget Jones,’ in which I kill no one.”
Grant believes this script is “the best” from the franchise, adding, “It’s the one with the most heart, based on Helen [Fielding]’s brilliant book… which was really about her experience of bringing up her children alone after her husband died.”
“It’s very moving, but also very funny,” Grant teased.
As for “Heretic,” he said it is a “dark script,” centering on two young missionaries becoming ensnared in a deadly game of cat and mouse when they knock on the door of the diabolical Mr. Reed.
Hugh loved the opportunity to play against type. “It’s more fun being the baddie than the goodie,” he said. “Goodies are difficult. It’s very hard not to make them boring.”
Grant prepared for his role by researching serial killers and cult leaders. He commented, “I did a lot of rabbit holes. They’re so fascinating… particularly the ones who had a following who continued to follow them and adore them even after they’d slaughtered them.”
In the movie, Hugh’s character has strong feelings toward religion. He said, “The deconstruction of Christianity by my character is actually genuinely fascinating. There was stuff in there that I didn’t know at all, and I would think for anyone with any Christian faith, it’ll be a bit unsettling.”
While the movie is dark at times, there are also humor in it! Grant said, “I thought that was very important… The film would work better, especially given how much he speaks and his lectures, if he was fun professor, the teacher who thinks he’s pretty funny and entertaining and fresh and iconoclastic. I thought the horror would work better rattling away under the comedy.”
Hugh joked about going from playing an Oompa-Loompa in “Wonka” to this role, laughing that there are actually some “worrying similarities” between the characters.
He elaborated, “They’re both insecure and they’re both rather self-obsessed, and this applies to a number of characters I’ve played over the last eight years.”
Sophie and Chloe would unwind after a day of filming by going to the mall!
Instead of shopping, they did a lot of “people watching,” with Chloe adding, “Just a complete disassociation, just, like, from everything going on.”
Hugh chimed in, “Tragic.”
“My evenings were tragic as well. I was in a different hotel in the middle of Vancouver and I had no friends at all,” Grant went on. “If I had any time off, I’d go for a walk down by the harbor and learn my lines, and the only person who liked me was a seal.”
Sophie and Chloe are looking forward to seeing people’s reaction to the film, which has an open ending. Sophie said, “I think with any good movie, I would hope for a debate, and the ending is very ambiguous and I think you can interpret it any way.”
Chloe added, “I’m just so fascinated by everyone’s different takes on it… Some people are so firm on it, ‘It is this way,’ and truthfully, it wasn’t. There was no firm ending.”
“Heretic” is in theaters November 7.
