Withnail and Us (1999 TV Movie)

Richard E. Grant: Self

Quotes 

• Richard E. Grant : Bruce Robinson described this character as a lying, mendacious, cowardly, prancing, posing, utterly charming old darling. So, uh...

  [laughs] 

  Richard E. Grant : you go home with that and think - uh, well, you know, how do I fit all that into saying one line?

• Richard E. Grant : [discussing the cult status of the film]  I was in a tiny village in the south of France some years ago and a car drove past and people shouted out "SCRUBBERS!" So I knew that... I had to explain to the people that I was with that this hopefully wasn't a term of abuse.

• Bruce Robinson : [talking about the casting process]  And then fatty Grant who came in with his great jowls drooping... I had to get him on a diet to make him work in the part because he looked like a sort of fat Dirk Bogarde.

  [cuts to Richard E. Grant being interviewed] 

  Richard E. Grant : [laughs]  I've got pictures to prove it, I've never been fat. But, you know, I think that's part of the auteur self-worship that directors indulge themselves in, that, you know, "I have taken this person who weighed 27 stone and then reduced them to this, and then pulled this performance out of them". Well, bollocks to that.

• [after the story of executive producer Denis O'Brien wanting to shut the production down because he thought it wasn't funny is told] 

  Richard E. Grant : So, um, the stupid fucker got it all wrong, didn't he?