Actor Richard Grant has a very interesting origin - he is from a family of Afrikaners. These are the descendants of the colonists of South Africa, who live mainly in South Africa. They consider Africa their ethnic homeland, because their ancestors settled here for a very long time.
Now more and more Afrikaners are emigrating to English-speaking countries, as Richard Grant's family did at one time.
Biography
The real name of the actor is Esterhuysen, and English, Dutch and German blood flows in his veins. He was born in 1957 in the South African city of Mbabane, in the kingdom of Swaziland. His father was an important person in South Africa - the colonial minister of education in the administration of the British protectorate of Swaziland. Mom was a ballet teacher. Richard Esterhuysen still has a brother, Stuart, but they do not communicate - his brother lives in Johannesburg and works as a guide there.
Richard studied at different schools: first in Mbaban, where he was born, then in a secondary school in Kamkhlaba, and after graduation he studied at the University of Cape Town. Grant changed his name when he moved to England, but he is a double citizen of the United Kingdom and Swaziland.
Already in Cape Town, Richard played in the "Space Theater", playing various roles. Everything was normal in his native element, and when he arrived in England, he began to have problems with the language, because in his speech a strong South African accent was felt.
Actor's career
However, this did not stop him in 1986 from starring in the movie "Wintail and Me, " which became very popular in England. After this picture, Grant began to appear in Hollywood films and very quickly established himself as an excellent actor who can be trusted with both the main and episodic roles, and everywhere he will be on top.
Over the past 20 years, Grant has played in such films as “Henry and June, ” “Los Angeles Story, ” “Player, ” “Age of Innocence, ” “Portrait of a Lady, ” “World of Spices, ” “Gosford Park, ” Vivid young things "and" Penelope."
A funny episode occurred during the filming of Los Angeles Story: screenwriter Steve Martin sent faxes to Richard with the following scenes and accompanied them with humorous comments. The actor was very happy about this correspondence and put together a whole collection of faxes with the original, vibrant, inimitable language of Steve. Not without reason, after the release of the film, the audience quoted the statements of the heroes, for example: "Everyone has their own half, even if you need a hoe and a compass to find it."
In 1995, Grant starred in Peter Capaldi's short film, This Wonderful Life of Franz Kafka. The film won the Academy Award for Best Short Film of 1995. In 1996, he portrayed the hilarious Sir Andrew Aguechek in Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night, or Anything, a fairy-tale story based on Shakespeare.
Grant portrayed the Doctor of Doctor Who twice in two episodes. In the comedy sketch of Doctor Who and The Curse of Deadly Death, he portrayed a version of the Tenth Doctor called the Pretty Pretty Doctor. He also voiced the Ninth Doctor version of the original BBC animated webcast. Grant made his first appearance in Doctor Who in the 2012 Christmas special edition entitled Snowmen, in which he plays the villain Walter Simeon.
This work made him a very popular actor, and when the Performing Arts Festival was held in London, he gave a welcoming speech at the University of London and presented the 2008 Laurence Olivier Award winners.
In 2008, he made his debut in the musical theater at Opera Australia, playing the role of Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady" at the Royal Theater in Sydney. He played the same role later in 2017 in the Chicago Lyric Opera. In 2009, he played Alain Reil in the one-act play Yasmina Reza's "God of Massacre" at the Royal Theater in Bath, and then played the same role on tour in Cheltenham, Canterbury, Richmond, Brighton and Milton Keynes.
In March 2013, Grant starred as intelligence analyst Brian Jones in David Morley’s drama Dossiers in Iraq with Peter Firth, Anton Lesser, David Caves and Lindsay Duncan. It described how British intelligence secretary Jones tried to warn that his government’s September dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was inaccurate.
In 2017, he played the role of Zander Rice, the main antagonist of Logan in the film "Logan", where his shooting partners were Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Daphne Keane, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Elizabeth Rodriguez and other celebrities.
Directing
As a child, Richard experienced a severe shock: the divorce of his parents due to the betrayal of his mother. After that, he began to keep a diary. And when he became an actor, he decided to write a script and make a biographical film about his childhood. In 2006, this film was released, which Grant called "Wow Wow." The film starred Nicholas Holt, Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson, Julie Walters and Emily Watson.
The film was shot in Swaziland, in the director’s homeland, he had a lot of difficulties with the producer, but the film came out and received very warm reviews from the audience, who were struck by the sincerity in Grant’s story about his life.
Now the actor’s portfolio has more than one hundred films, and the best of them are considered to be “Whitnail and Me” (1986), “Dracula” (1982), “Christmas Spirits” (1999), “My Little Angel” (2011), “Hudson Hawk” "(1991).
