Blast from the past: Hugh Grant talks about Notting Hill

The downside of fame? Well, if you’re Hugh Grant, you might find that, at some point after the 1994 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Four Weddings and a Funeral, the movie that launched your international stardom, someone digitally doctored a photo of you so that your face appeared atop the body of a studly and shirtless male model on the cover of a German movie magazine. At least, that’s what I found, while visiting a newsstand during a break at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival. So, of course, I had to buy two copies of the publication, and give one to Grant several weeks later during the L.A. junket for Nine Months (an event that, for very different reasons, proved quite memorable for him). To his credit, he laughed off the outrage, and even agreed to autograph my own copy precisely the way I suggested: “To Joe – Sod off, you wanker! You’ll never have a stomach this flat! Hugh Grant!” Four years later, at the May 1999 London junket for Notting Hill, we were still joking about his Photoshop experience.

The upside of fame? Well, Grant admits, it’s nice not to be broke…