Why Hugh Grant Really Didn't Want To Do That Famous Love Actually Dance Scene
"Love Actually" is a bit of a sticky film to bring up. People either love it or write endless stories about how awful it is. If the film comes up at parties, it's bound to cause an argument. Whether "Love Actually" is the worst film in history, as some say, or a good-naturedly messy film about messy people in a messy world is up to you, but it's likely that many of us can at least agree about the dancing scene.
In the film, Hugh Grant plays the Prime Minister of the UK. He's young, handsome, and single. In a 2013 Daily Beast interview (updated in 2017) with the cast of "Love Actually," writer/director Richard Curtis said that the idea came from former Prime Minister Ted Heath, who was unmarried while in office. Curtis explains that he always thought about what would have happened if Heath fell in love with someone while running the country.
At one point, a radio station dedicates "Jump" by the Pointer Sisters to the Prime Minister, and Grant's character dances through 10 Downing Street until he realizes he's being watched. It's a highlight of the film, no matter what you think of it, but it definitely wasn't a highlight for Grant, who really, really didn't want to do it.
Jump ... and awkwardly boogie
In the interview, Richard Curtis says that Hugh Grant was, "hugely grumpy about it," and I'd like to point out that Daily Beast uses all caps for the word "hugely." Curtis explains that Grant "was so wanting his bit not to be fake," which is completely understandable. That said, isn't it better when you know that the people in authority over a country can at least dance down the stairs every once in a while? When Curtis asked him to be "a bit sweeter" or "do it a bit more charming," Grant thought he was being tricked. Curtis says:
"I told him, 'I'm going to mainly be giving you a very magisterial point of view, but I just want to make you a bit sweeter once in a while.' The fault line was the dance, because there was no way he could do that in a prime ministerial manner.
"He kept on putting it off, and he didn't like the song — it was originally a Jackson 5 song, but we couldn't get it — so he was hugely unhappy about it. We didn't shoot it until the final day and it went so well that when we edited it, it had gone too well, and he was singing along with the words."
Look, it's a catchy tune, and for just a moment, you can block all the weird fat jokes from that storyline out of your head and just enjoy Grant being a giant goofball. Grant really did hate it, though. He recently told Diane Sawyer on the upcoming ABC special "The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later" (via Deadline), "I saw it in the script and I thought, 'Well, I'll hate doing that."
'A contractual guillotine'
In the ABC interview, Richard Curtis — who was also interviewed — said that he thought Hugh Grant was hoping that Curtis would "get ill or something and we'd say 'Oh, well, what a shame, we'll have to lose that dancing sequence." Grant called the dance number "a contractual guillotine," which is pretty dramatic. Look, dancing in front of people who aren't also moving to the rhythm is weird and uncomfortable, and if it's not something you're relaxed about, it can be pretty embarrassing. Even all these years later, Grant says in the special that he wasn't hitting the beats correctly, "Especially at the beginning when I wiggle my a**." He even jokes:
"And to this day, there's many people, and I agree with them, who think it's the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid. But then some people like it."
Throwing my two cents in here, but I am one of the ones who like it. It is absolutely embarrassing. It is definitely out of rhythm. It's cringey at the highest level, and yet it's very hard not to smile when you see it.
The ABC special "The Laughter & Secrets of Love Actually: 20 Years Later" airs on November 29, 2022 on ABC.