Romantic comedies made him famous, but the actor Hugh Grant he can’t quite believe them… And he wonders if the big love is just a “nice big lie” of the big screen.

“The big question is whether the whole idea of ​​a man and a woman being completely inseparable – something that the whole world is looking for – is true or if it’s a nice big lie,” the 62-year-old Briton wondered during a meeting in Paris before starting to screen his film “Dungeons & Dragons: Honesty Among Thieves” there on Wednesday.

“I feel like it’s probably a pretty big lie, even though I’ve built my entire career and fortune on it!” joked the actor of films such as One Night on Notting Hill and Four Marriages and a funeral.”

“I mean, how many truly happy relationships do we know? There aren’t many,” he continued. “All these rom-coms I’ve done, it would be interesting to do sequels now, which would probably start with the divorce lawyers.”

Irony aside, the actor then referred to the beginning of his career in an interview with AFP. “I wish I was more ambitious, had bigger ambitions,” he said.

“Honestly, I think I was too lazy. I could have tried harder when I had a lot of success and was being talked about in Hollywood,” he added. “I could make any movie I wanted but, really, all I wanted to do was watch football.”

“Too old and too ugly”

Lately, though, Hugh Grant has been able to play darker roles. In “Dungeons & Dragons,” he’s a power-hungry criminal: “the bad guys go to me,” he says. “It’s been six or seven years, I’m finally having some fun, being too old and too ugly to be the hero.”

“Actually, I started out playing dumb roles… And suddenly I was directed towards front-line roles. I never thought I was particularly cut out for it (…) It’s really hard to be the hero. Well paid, but difficult.”

In any case, “celebrity has changed a lot since my time because of social media,” he notes.

“I’ve always dreamed of being like those mysterious stars of the 1930s or 1940s, when we didn’t know who the real person was behind the scenes, when you and your studio could tell as many lies as you wanted.”

His advice? “Try to keep some mystery. Don’t create an Instagram account!”