Hugh Grant and Tom Cruise are two of Hollywood’s biggest stars, but Cruise is unquestionably one of the industry’s most legendary figures. Grant was once offered Cruise’s renowned film by mistake. Jerry Maguire, which was released on December 13, 1996, was first offered to Grant accidentally.
As he was going through a difficult period in his work, the 62-year-old allegedly believed that this may be the turning point in his life. However, the actor was quickly disappointed when he learned that the script was for Cruise.
Hugh Grant said his career was in bad shape when he was offered Jerry Maguire
Hugh Grant had to deal with a difficult period in his career when his films did poorly at the box office. One of the reasons his career was struggling was that the 62-year-old chose the wrong scripts without carefully considering the after-effects. Once Grant spoke about how he was accidentally offered Tom Cruise’s part in Jerry Maguire. He said he was shocked when he read the script of Jerry Maguire because the script was really good. The actor explained,
“And they did have a track record of doing that. They’d done it once before. And I’d called and said, ‘Hang on, this is good. And you sure it was meant for me?’ And they’d said, ‘No, sorry. This is meant for Tom Cruise.’ That was Jerry Maguire.”
Reportedly, Grant already knew there could be a chance that Jerry Maguire’s role wasn’t for him. Cruise was paid $20 million for playing the role of Jerry in Jerry Maguire.
Hugh Grant just wanted to work with pretty actresses and for money at one point in his career
Grant definitely saw success but there was also a time when he witnessed back-to-back flops. During an interview in the past, the Love Actually actor said he is responsible for choosing the wrong scripts. He also said he said yes to many of the projects because he wanted to work with good-looking actresses and primarily for money which caused a lot of problems in his career.
He also mentioned there were some projects that he did but they were never properly released. In an interview, the 62-year-old said,
“I managed to sell out and just do highly paid, terrible miniseries and very odd European, what I called ‘Euro puddings,’ where they’d be written by a Spaniard directed by a German, with English actors. They were awful and they never got really released properly. But, you know, it sounded like fun. There were pretty actresses in it that I wanted to spend time with and I did things for all the wrong motives.”
He further added,
“And it very nearly utterly killed my career before suddenly Four Weddings came along a few years later.”
Four Weddings and a Funeral was one of the most significant opportunities for Grant to prove to the world that he is a skilled actor and he still had everything that a good actor should have in Hollywood.
Source: The Things
