Hugh Grant Says “Cloud Atlas” Saved His Career, Made Him 'Enjoy' Acting Again After Feeling 'Completely Marooned'

"I thought, oh yeah, I used to really enjoy doing characters," the actor said of playing six roles in the 2012 film 'Cloud Atlas'

Hugh Grant is recalling a moment when his career was reinvigorated.

While speaking with Vanity Fair about his new horror film Heretic, the actor, 64, said his career changed with 2012's Cloud Atlas. He said the directors of his latest movie, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, cited Cloud Atlas as a movie that made them want to work with Grant.

“I was completely marooned,” he recalled of the period of his career following his 2009 movie Did You Hear About the Morgans? When Cloud Atlas came along, the Wachowski siblings offered Grant "just a few small little parts" in the movie, he said.

"To be honest, I was probably only offered that because some of their international distributors had said, ‘We need some more recognizable names. Cram someone recognizable in here,' " Grant recalled.

"They would’ve thought, ‘Oh, we don’t really want Hugh Grant, but we’ll give him some tiny parts.’ They will deny that but I think it’s partly what happened.”

Related: Hugh Grant Plays a Terrifying Horror Villain in A24's Heretic Trailer

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Grant ultimately played six different characters in Cloud Atlas, a sci-fi epic that also starred Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Ben Whitshaw, and he told Vanity Fair he really enjoyed playing multiple parts.

“I thought, oh yeah, I used to really enjoy doing characters — in fact, I almost used to enjoy acting,” he said. “I started out doing silly voices, odd people, making people laugh at university, and then doing this comedy show in London. It was doing characters."

"Then through sheer chance, maybe because of the way I looked, I got drawn into the leading romantic hero. It went fine, but it’s not what I think I’m best at — partly because it’s less fun.”

Related: Hugh Grant Teases 'Funny' New Bridget Jones Sequel: Renée Zellweger 'and I Always Seem to Click' (Exclusive)

Since Cloud Atlas, Grant noted that he has more often played villains than protagonists, and that continues with Heretic. In the film, Grant plays a man named Mr. Reed, who kidnaps two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) and holds them hostage in his home after they happen to knock on his door.

“On a big screen, over 90 minutes, unless there’s a sense of the quivering jelly — the damaged bit inside — it’s going to be boring and just be a mustache-twirling baddie,” he told the outlet of playing villains. “You’ve got to get to the jelly.”

Heretic is in theaters Nov. 15.

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