Richard E. Grant.Photo:Jeff Spicer/Getty
Jeff Spicer/Getty
Richard E. Grantmay be known for the sardonic wit he brings to the screen in his breakoutWithnail and I, Oscar-nominatedCan You Ever Forgive Me?and beyond. Or perhaps for hiswell-documented adorationofBarbra Streisand— expertise in “the lexicon of Streisandia,” as he tells PEOPLE. But as his newly releasedA Pocketful of Happinesscan attest, the 66-year-old actor is also a gifted memoirist.
More accurately, given that the book is a collection of journal entries curated from different eras of his life, Grant is a diarist. Born in the British protectorate of Swaziland (now an independent country known as Eswatini) he began writing, as he says in the prologue toA Pocketful of Happiness, at age 10 “after waking up on the back seat of a car to witness my mother bonking my father’s best friend on the front seat in 1967.”
Courtesy of Simon and Schuster
I’d like to first say I’m sorry for your loss, but grateful for your willingness to talk about it, both in this book and here. Is it strange to discuss the passing of your wife in interviews like this one?
Richard E. Grant:No, because when I published the book [in the United Kingdom, I] then did a one-man show based on it, touring Australia and New Zealand and all around the United Kingdom and Denmark and Scotland and Ireland. I got so in the habit of talking for an hour about the whole experience, that I suppose I got used to it. And I found it very cathartic and very helpful.
The other thing is that in my experience — and it’s certainly a very western phenomenon that has chimed with many, many people that I have met or who have written to me or contacted me via social media — people either won’t talk about the person who’s died or they won’t acknowledge that the person died. So the effect on the person who is bereaved is that you feel like the person who’s died has been either canceled or never existed. And what you want more than anything is to be able to talk about them! So, this book has proved to be a catalyst for that.
Joan Washington and Richard E. Grant in 2019.David M. Benett/Getty
David M. Benett/Getty
They say that in writing a book, you know so much more about how to do the writing at the end of the process than at the beginning. How does that apply to, in this case, a collection of journals that covers the trajectory of the passing of a loved one?
And how are you doing now? Where are you and your daughter in that grieving journey?
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Olivia Grant, Richard E. Grant and Joan Washington.TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty
A Pocketful of Happinesshas plenty of joy, especially when chronicling yourrun-ins with celebrities. In general, how does pop culture or its artists help distract you or heal from difficult times?
Are there any celebrity meetings that didn’t make it into the book?
[Laughs] Because we’ve been in show business for decades, and my wife worked as an accent coach for A-list actors for the last 40 years, we got messages and calls and visits from a bigger list than is in there. But the editor said that, “I think that we have to edit them down because it starts just to [be a] kind of roll call of, ah, the glitterati. And you can alienate people from that way.” And I said, “Well, these are the people that we happen to know and are friends with!” And she said, “Well, let’s ameliorate that.”
We have to ask you aboutBarbra Streisandof course. Is there an underrated factoid or aspect of her career that you can’t believe more people don’t know about?
I don’t know, but in her beautiful letter that she sent me just the month before Joan died, she did say, “So far you are the only person that I know of who has a statue of me.” So I was so thrilled to hear this. I have created something that nobody else has done, you know, in the lexicon of Streisandia.
Lastly, what is your artistic mission? Your overall goal as a creative person?
To be as honest as I possibly can. Warts and all. And, you know, that’s absolutely in my writing. There’s no censorship whatsoever because I firmly and profoundly believe that secrets are toxic. And I know, to my own cost, to my family, what that is. And if you are honest in your art, then you reach people and people respond. They sniff out inauthenticity a mile off.
source: people.com
