Name: Hugh Grant Tries To Do An American Accent | David Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-11-20T16:00:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Hugh Grant Tries To Do An American Accent | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-11-20. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Hugh Grant Tries To Do An American Accent | David Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-11-20. Transcript available.

welcome back to the show thank you very much you look uh you look like you lost
weight you look
like you're ready to go you look like you're in shape have you been doing
something are you
working out what's going on well you know what i mean you look trim you look uh
ready are you
chatting me up a little bit yeah but i don't recall it seemed to me like you
you know i have
i have i mean i resisted uh exercise for a long time why now why is that that
didn't seem wise it
seemed uncool um you know the working out thing i have a game of football is
fine working out
seemed uncool but um they lost patience with me on bridget jones's diary and
said you're fat
get thin and now do you mind if i ask you how much you weighed no i don't mind
how much first of all
how tall are you let's start there uh i'm 5 11 5 11. and what was the highest
you weighed what was the
most you weighed uh i got up to maybe 182 pounds how many stones is that that's
12 and a half stone
but i was i was saggy that's what it was i was you know have you ever had that
thing where you're
washing your face i was shaving and i rinsed my face like this in the basin and
i looked up at the
mirror to the side and my eyes looked up and my face stayed down in the basin
and that's when i knew
i had to do something so now i have this fantastic swedish woman who comes
three times a week and
is that uh is that about the national average in sweden
now you'd love her because uh she's just you know the whole idea of a trainer
is not very appealing but
she's so kind she takes me to the park and she um she throws sticks for me like
a dog i have to fetch
them she's very strict if i don't fetch them fast enough and then we go back to
the house and she
puts me on the floor of my sitting room and wrestles me for half an hour really
wow well i can see
where you get a pretty good workout yeah yeah and you keep at it yeah yeah your
interest never wanes
never wanes no all right so you started like you were 180 something and what
are you now
i'm way down i'm about a hundred and i'm a svelte 170 now yeah well you look
pretty damn good nice going
he smoked not anymore you did smoke for a long time though didn't you i did
smoke smoke
uh drank everything yes but no i'm better now i'm going was it hard giving up
the butts
coming up the what you know the cigarettes it goes is it hard giving those up
but what did you call
them bugs butts oh butts well i used to smoke the whole cigarette so um if i'd
been on butts it
it would have been pretty easy i just thought smoking but you know i earn a lot
of money now i
can buy a whole package of cigarettes how long did you smoke i was smoking a
few years you know yeah
but it was difficult when i was living with elizabeth at the time who smokes
400 a day
and so you can't but she's often now um she's wearing patches you know you're
supposed to wear
nicotine patch yeah and you're meant to wear three then two then one right she's
still on 20 patches
got them all up and down permanently yeah everywhere she has see-through ones
uh now uh uh you just have you just come from london you just didn't come from
london did you yes i
did yeah the day before yesterday you know what they have over there is the the
uh hoof and mouth
disease yes that's right and it's it's terribly serious and they're eradicating
all manner of uh i guess
it's a sheep and and cattle because of this uh yeah yeah problem and they and
they quarantine
and now were you sprayed or anything when you came here well no they were very
kind to me um
because i wasn't actually bringing any cattle this time so i think that you
know have you traveled with
cattle in the past they hate that they're very sharp on that yeah yeah um but
actually you know it's a
horrible thing and i was i didn't get a fax today sort of from the british
authorities saying please
when you're doing press out in america make it plain to america that uh england's
still safe
it's open for business you can come and visit so i'd just like to say to america
please you know
it's absolutely safe unless you happen to be a sheep or a cow in which case it's
quite dangerous or
unless you're perhaps partly cow you know if you've overdone the collagen you
should be very careful
but it's it's already uh taken a toll on tourism for that very reason hasn't it
not yet no no it hasn't
he said
not even slightly but they uh it's not a it's not a it's not a threat to humans
is that right it cannot
be transmitted to humans this no not even slightly yeah but it's it's the uh
the sheep and the cattle
they're putting them down by the dozens i understand no it's hideous it's a
horrible
thing well i hope they get to the bottom of this thing now when you when you
when you travel do
they always do they do you are you searched and frisked when you come through
customs and that kind
of thing have you ever been the the awful thing is i am because uh i am a
serial uncontrollable
smuggler i can't seem to stop really it started some years ago on the way we're
coming back from a
holiday in turkey and we bought these rugs and i said to elizabeth who i was
then with you know i
think we have to declare these and she's insane i said no no it's fine just put
them in the suitcases
so we put them in the suitcases suitcases wouldn't even shut there was great
bits of carpet sticking
actual large turkish rugs about seven huge rolled up rugs so the suitcases were
open with bits of
rug showing there were others rolled out under her arms with brown paper around
them nothing could have
looked more rug like these things fought through customs the customs guy says
you haven't by any
chance got any carpets have you and i couldn't believe my ears she said no
can you open the packet boing out comes a carpet is that that's the only one
then is it yes that's
the only one could you open your suitcase is boing boing boing and we were
horribly done they take
you into a room and uh very frightening men come in it's very ancient the whole
customs thing in england
and about six guys stand there one of them about 90 years old and they say
formally it is now two
o'clock in the morning and you are charged with smuggling and everyone has to
write down smuggling
on bits of paper and then they say um your property is now seized and everyone
has to write seized and
then it says it is now the property of the queen and you write down queen and
then you have a choice
you either pay the fine or you buy it back from the queen and what did you do
well you say how much the
queen want and they won't tell you
so we did not buy them back in that case we did buy them back at vast expense
but you know i thought
i'd learn my lesson next time came back from uh hong kong laden with contraband
said not making the
same mistake again we'll go through the red channel so we went through the red
channel which no one has
ever been through in the history of heathrow airport there's a man in there you
know covered in cobwebs
very amazed to see us and uh we declare everything tons of this stuff and he
says that's marvelous
and that's it is it no video cameras no no no uh tvs no no watches no he said
what about that watch
you're wearing madam and i said no no no i got that ages ago in france that's
that's fine in france
sir did you uh did you declare that when you came into the country and i
thought never lie to these
guys i learned that lesson with the carpets i said you know what as a matter of
fact i didn't you are
now charged with smuggling retroactive smuggling yeah that's crazy yeah yeah
good lord well you're lucky
to be alive i'm not sure what that means but that's quite a story you know uh i
don't know you probably
know about the baseball and stuff because you've been coming to this country
for i would guess 10 20
years or so right you'd have thought that i'd have picked it up by now well you
know we had opening day
uh began this week and now we get the rest of the spring and summer for
baseball now do you ever go
to games you know anything about baseball i'm not good on it i gotta say i was
uh taken once i think
but about 20 years ago uh to the yankees yeah and uh i found it very
interesting i like the guy who
they had a thing one guy who pitches um pitches so hard yeah this is how i
remember it that he was
driven out to the middle right towards the end of the game and he pitches so
hard that he breaks his
arm after three throws three pitches uh is that right a guy called the uh the
goose the crow the goose
and the crow that's right of course i loved him yeah there's a goose gossage
maybe is who you're
thinking of used to pitch for the yankees yeah there you go yeah yeah yeah so
you did see him pitch
then did you saw him pitch now is it is it comparable to uh cricket or rounders
do what the hell is
rounders do you know what rounders no one knows you play and you just quarrel
about the rules most of
the time rounders is a game that people get together and play in great britain
mostly girls but yeah you
can play yeah and then and then cricket is it similar okay in baseball in rounders
if you're running
between a base if you throw it at the person and hit them below the waist they're
out is that the same in
baseball yes yes that is the same in baseball
but what uh i've i've been to cricket matches i've seen it televised i've
actually listened to
it on the radio and for the life of me i have not a clue no i know it is impenetrable
um but
and brutal i mean that's what i can't decide whether baseball or cricket's more
brutal you
know both have i think a very hard ball that's right but uh cricket is i mean
you know it was
invented in what 1701 earlier and uh it was made really for real men and i
think england's running
out of real men and that's why we now play it so badly i mean only the australians
and the south
africans can play this game now because it's it's you know you've got australian
bowlers who'll say i
can't go on with the game mate because i've got a bit of the batsman's nose in
the ball you know and
they have a bit of the the bone that's just smashed this guy in the thing oh
lord yeah but it's there's
two things it's it's played by guys wearing white slacks right is that true it's
always white slacks
you have to wear your whites yeah and there's always some sort of match fixing
scandal somewhere in the
world yes sadly sadly that doesn't it but it's so slow who could who would
notice that it's being fixed
and you know and maybe fixing it is not that bad an idea come to think of it
just anything to get on
with it yeah no you got a point you got a point but you know it's the clothes
that are the appeals of
people like me but you look lovely in them but a white shirt a match will last
like a week is that
possible uh five days yeah with plenty of breaks you know you stop in the
middle of the afternoon for
tea and all that stuff and is it is it popular not anymore i mean the big
matches i guess but the
other ones i used to go as a boy to lords which is the big you know stadium in
london for for cricket
just specifically to smoke because it's where the fewest people would be my
friend simon berger and
we'd sit there we'd be maybe 12 people in the whole stadium yeah and there was
a horrible horrible
incident where what happens is that when the ball comes over the boundary it's
traditional for little
boys to jump over the fence throw the ball back to the that's very never
happened to me and then one
day i was smoking my kensitas there and uh the ball came i jumped over and
threw it back to john snow
who's this huge very famous english cricketer and i was so excited that my
release mechanism and my hand
failed and i the ball didn't come out of my hand it stayed in it i threw it up
and into the upper tier of
the stand which was completely deserted and they had to have stewards go and
find it and there was
derisive you know applause from all around lords it was horrible it's terrible
i had to do everything
that kids do again thanks fans yeah you ruined the game you tossed the ball
away yeah i got some uh this
is an issue of a talk magazine you're on the cover there may uh the 2001 issue
of talk and you
open it up inside and look at this now how do you get this whose idea was that
how do you get it done
it's um talk magazine doing a lot of talking there aren't you got a lot got a
lot to talk about right
there i sometimes regret these things but you know i uh i've discovered the
only i'm very bad at having my
picture taken in stills like this so i put it in my sort of deal that i have to
be drunk so when i get
there they provide a bottle of champagne and then when the photographer comes
up and says you know i
think it will be interesting to do a shot with four naked girl i i said well
yeah absolutely fine i'd do
anything and some of it and what exactly did you say between shots what is the
level of that conversation
that's pretty good uh renee zellweger is that the bridget jones and bridget jones's
diary that's
correct yes yes based on very very uh successful uh books published by the same
name that's yes correct
i mean bridget jones not renee zellweger that's right i'm sorry and uh and tell
us about uh more
about the film well um i don't know it's uh based on these books that everyone
says women all over the
world love but i think men love them too and just don't admit it uh you may be
one for all i know
they are hysterical books and uh it's been made into what i i saw it for the
first time last night
it is i have to say even though i'm in it a very very funny film now she she
does she's from texas i
think isn't she or living yeah but she does a british accent yeah so it's a
controversial choice to play
this but you're very convincing i thought in the film her accent unbelievable i
mean it's the most because
that's a notoriously difficult thing to do accent wise to cross the atlantic
and uh i feared for
her and there were early days in rehearsal when she did sound a bit like
princess margaret and we had
to bring it right down and then she went through a very very brief phase where
she sounded a little
bit like she just had a stroke you know okay that's not good no but um but then
she was over that and it
was pinpoint i mean i think because she did british on set and offset all the
time and i think of her as
british i find her unconvincing as an american it's it's interesting sometimes
when you see a british
film with all british actors and there would be british men and women using
american accents it's
it's very it's fascinating it's poor isn't it now can you do an american accent
not after my one
experience doing it uh i did it for a tv thing and for some reason it came out
incredibly low and incredibly
and the film when does the film open by gosh it opens it opens april 13th well
that's great and
i'm sure it'll be a big hit for you thank you thank you thank you
i keep thinking you're about to play a lovely clip um but i guess you're not
well i don't know it's out
of my hands let's see do we have time for a lovely clip well i guess no i'm
sorry okay the spanner in
the water let's take a look here we go here's the clip roll it bridget jones's
diary opening april
13th pleasure to see you again thank you very much you grant ladies gentlemen
we'll be right back with

Hugh Grant Tries To Do An American Accent | David Letterman

welcome back to the show thank you very much you look uh you look like you lost
weight you look
like you're ready to go you look like you're in shape have you been doing
something are you
working out what's going on well you know what i mean you look trim you look uh
ready are you
chatting me up a little bit yeah but i don't recall it seemed to me like you
you know i have
i have i mean i resisted uh exercise for a long time why now why is that that
didn't seem wise it
seemed uncool um you know the working out thing i have a game of football is
fine working out
seemed uncool but um they lost patience with me on bridget jones's diary and
said you're fat
get thin and now do you mind if i ask you how much you weighed no i don't mind
how much first of all
how tall are you let's start there uh i'm 5 11 5 11. and what was the highest
you weighed what was the
most you weighed uh i got up to maybe 182 pounds how many stones is that that's
12 and a half stone
but i was i was saggy that's what it was i was you know have you ever had that
thing where you're
washing your face i was shaving and i rinsed my face like this in the basin and
i looked up at the
mirror to the side and my eyes looked up and my face stayed down in the basin
and that's when i knew
i had to do something so now i have this fantastic swedish woman who comes
three times a week and
is that uh is that about the national average in sweden
now you'd love her because uh she's just you know the whole idea of a trainer
is not very appealing but
she's so kind she takes me to the park and she um she throws sticks for me like
a dog i have to fetch
them she's very strict if i don't fetch them fast enough and then we go back to
the house and she
puts me on the floor of my sitting room and wrestles me for half an hour really
wow well i can see
where you get a pretty good workout yeah yeah and you keep at it yeah yeah your
interest never wanes
never wanes no all right so you started like you were 180 something and what
are you now
i'm way down i'm about a hundred and i'm a svelte 170 now yeah well you look
pretty damn good nice going
he smoked not anymore you did smoke for a long time though didn't you i did
smoke smoke
uh drank everything yes but no i'm better now i'm going was it hard giving up
the butts
coming up the what you know the cigarettes it goes is it hard giving those up
but what did you call
them bugs butts oh butts well i used to smoke the whole cigarette so um if i'd
been on butts it
it would have been pretty easy i just thought smoking but you know i earn a lot
of money now i
can buy a whole package of cigarettes how long did you smoke i was smoking a
few years you know yeah
but it was difficult when i was living with elizabeth at the time who smokes
400 a day
and so you can't but she's often now um she's wearing patches you know you're
supposed to wear
nicotine patch yeah and you're meant to wear three then two then one right she's
still on 20 patches
got them all up and down permanently yeah everywhere she has see-through ones
uh now uh uh you just have you just come from london you just didn't come from
london did you yes i
did yeah the day before yesterday you know what they have over there is the the
uh hoof and mouth
disease yes that's right and it's it's terribly serious and they're eradicating
all manner of uh i guess
it's a sheep and and cattle because of this uh yeah yeah problem and they and
they quarantine
and now were you sprayed or anything when you came here well no they were very
kind to me um
because i wasn't actually bringing any cattle this time so i think that you
know have you traveled with
cattle in the past they hate that they're very sharp on that yeah yeah um but
actually you know it's a
horrible thing and i was i didn't get a fax today sort of from the british
authorities saying please
when you're doing press out in america make it plain to america that uh england's
still safe
it's open for business you can come and visit so i'd just like to say to america
please you know
it's absolutely safe unless you happen to be a sheep or a cow in which case it's
quite dangerous or
unless you're perhaps partly cow you know if you've overdone the collagen you
should be very careful
but it's it's already uh taken a toll on tourism for that very reason hasn't it
not yet no no it hasn't
he said
not even slightly but they uh it's not a it's not a it's not a threat to humans
is that right it cannot
be transmitted to humans this no not even slightly yeah but it's it's the uh
the sheep and the cattle
they're putting them down by the dozens i understand no it's hideous it's a
horrible
thing well i hope they get to the bottom of this thing now when you when you
when you travel do
they always do they do you are you searched and frisked when you come through
customs and that kind
of thing have you ever been the the awful thing is i am because uh i am a
serial uncontrollable
smuggler i can't seem to stop really it started some years ago on the way we're
coming back from a
holiday in turkey and we bought these rugs and i said to elizabeth who i was
then with you know i
think we have to declare these and she's insane i said no no it's fine just put
them in the suitcases
so we put them in the suitcases suitcases wouldn't even shut there was great
bits of carpet sticking
actual large turkish rugs about seven huge rolled up rugs so the suitcases were
open with bits of
rug showing there were others rolled out under her arms with brown paper around
them nothing could have
looked more rug like these things fought through customs the customs guy says
you haven't by any
chance got any carpets have you and i couldn't believe my ears she said no
can you open the packet boing out comes a carpet is that that's the only one
then is it yes that's
the only one could you open your suitcase is boing boing boing and we were
horribly done they take
you into a room and uh very frightening men come in it's very ancient the whole
customs thing in england
and about six guys stand there one of them about 90 years old and they say
formally it is now two
o'clock in the morning and you are charged with smuggling and everyone has to
write down smuggling
on bits of paper and then they say um your property is now seized and everyone
has to write seized and
then it says it is now the property of the queen and you write down queen and
then you have a choice
you either pay the fine or you buy it back from the queen and what did you do
well you say how much the
queen want and they won't tell you
so we did not buy them back in that case we did buy them back at vast expense
but you know i thought
i'd learn my lesson next time came back from uh hong kong laden with contraband
said not making the
same mistake again we'll go through the red channel so we went through the red
channel which no one has
ever been through in the history of heathrow airport there's a man in there you
know covered in cobwebs
very amazed to see us and uh we declare everything tons of this stuff and he
says that's marvelous
and that's it is it no video cameras no no no uh tvs no no watches no he said
what about that watch
you're wearing madam and i said no no no i got that ages ago in france that's
that's fine in france
sir did you uh did you declare that when you came into the country and i
thought never lie to these
guys i learned that lesson with the carpets i said you know what as a matter of
fact i didn't you are
now charged with smuggling retroactive smuggling yeah that's crazy yeah yeah
good lord well you're lucky
to be alive i'm not sure what that means but that's quite a story you know uh i
don't know you probably
know about the baseball and stuff because you've been coming to this country
for i would guess 10 20
years or so right you'd have thought that i'd have picked it up by now well you
know we had opening day
uh began this week and now we get the rest of the spring and summer for
baseball now do you ever go
to games you know anything about baseball i'm not good on it i gotta say i was
uh taken once i think
but about 20 years ago uh to the yankees yeah and uh i found it very
interesting i like the guy who
they had a thing one guy who pitches um pitches so hard yeah this is how i
remember it that he was
driven out to the middle right towards the end of the game and he pitches so
hard that he breaks his
arm after three throws three pitches uh is that right a guy called the uh the
goose the crow the goose
and the crow that's right of course i loved him yeah there's a goose gossage
maybe is who you're
thinking of used to pitch for the yankees yeah there you go yeah yeah yeah so
you did see him pitch
then did you saw him pitch now is it is it comparable to uh cricket or rounders
do what the hell is
rounders do you know what rounders no one knows you play and you just quarrel
about the rules most of
the time rounders is a game that people get together and play in great britain
mostly girls but yeah you
can play yeah and then and then cricket is it similar okay in baseball in rounders
if you're running
between a base if you throw it at the person and hit them below the waist they're
out is that the same in
baseball yes yes that is the same in baseball
but what uh i've i've been to cricket matches i've seen it televised i've
actually listened to
it on the radio and for the life of me i have not a clue no i know it is impenetrable
um but
and brutal i mean that's what i can't decide whether baseball or cricket's more
brutal you
know both have i think a very hard ball that's right but uh cricket is i mean
you know it was
invented in what 1701 earlier and uh it was made really for real men and i
think england's running
out of real men and that's why we now play it so badly i mean only the australians
and the south
africans can play this game now because it's it's you know you've got australian
bowlers who'll say i
can't go on with the game mate because i've got a bit of the batsman's nose in
the ball you know and
they have a bit of the the bone that's just smashed this guy in the thing oh
lord yeah but it's there's
two things it's it's played by guys wearing white slacks right is that true it's
always white slacks
you have to wear your whites yeah and there's always some sort of match fixing
scandal somewhere in the
world yes sadly sadly that doesn't it but it's so slow who could who would
notice that it's being fixed
and you know and maybe fixing it is not that bad an idea come to think of it
just anything to get on
with it yeah no you got a point you got a point but you know it's the clothes
that are the appeals of
people like me but you look lovely in them but a white shirt a match will last
like a week is that
possible uh five days yeah with plenty of breaks you know you stop in the
middle of the afternoon for
tea and all that stuff and is it is it popular not anymore i mean the big
matches i guess but the
other ones i used to go as a boy to lords which is the big you know stadium in
london for for cricket
just specifically to smoke because it's where the fewest people would be my
friend simon berger and
we'd sit there we'd be maybe 12 people in the whole stadium yeah and there was
a horrible horrible
incident where what happens is that when the ball comes over the boundary it's
traditional for little
boys to jump over the fence throw the ball back to the that's very never
happened to me and then one
day i was smoking my kensitas there and uh the ball came i jumped over and
threw it back to john snow
who's this huge very famous english cricketer and i was so excited that my
release mechanism and my hand
failed and i the ball didn't come out of my hand it stayed in it i threw it up
and into the upper tier of
the stand which was completely deserted and they had to have stewards go and
find it and there was
derisive you know applause from all around lords it was horrible it's terrible
i had to do everything
that kids do again thanks fans yeah you ruined the game you tossed