Hugh Grant surprises AFI Fest with joke about 1995 arrest for lewd conduct at 'Heretic' premiere

Hugh Grant spent less than a minute at the podium Thursday night to introduce his new film Hereticbut he made the most of 57 seconds under the spotlight.

The savvy movie star was welcomed to the microphone by her directors, Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, who explained the inspiration for their religious horror thriller about two young Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) forced to prove their faith when they knock on the door they miss the door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (Grant), who taunts them by playing cat and mouse. The filmmaking team first took turns honoring the occasion (AFI Fest) and location (the iconic TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood).

“This cinema is absolutely magical for us. I'm sure it is for many of you in the audience as well,” Beck said. “It's nice that there are hundreds of us here, many of us are strangers, and yet it's a rarity to be here together in a time when we can sit and home with our personal devices. First of all, thank you so much for helping to preserve the cinematic experience.”

Moments later, Woods made a request. “Mr. Hugh Grant, could you just say a few words, please?”

Grant complied and offered only a handful, though enough to strain the crowd. “I have nothing interesting to add to this, except that it's very nice to be here,” the 64-year-old star said. “Hollywood Boulevard has always been a lucky place for me.”

The surprising line made Woods double over with laughter and the rest of the Heretic team applauding together with almost the entire audience sitting inside the Chinese. Grant's statement was an obvious reference to his 1995 arrest for lewd conduct with prostitute Estella Marie Thompson, aka Divine Brown. It's been nearly 30 years, so it's easy to forgive Grant for having a fuzzy memory as he was actually arrested two blocks south on Sunset Boulevard at 1:30 a.m. on June 27, 1995, when police officers caught him while he allegedly performed oral sex. in his white BMW.

“It's nice of AFI to have us on board. It's nice of you to introduce yourself. It was nice of these girls to be so brilliant in the movie. It was nice of these two weirdos to put me on the project and it was nice of the producers to pay me so little,” he said of the release on A24, once again drawing laughter. “I hope you like it.”

Judging by the public response, it seems so. But let's get back to the arrest. It's not the first time Grant has spoken out about the career-changing incident that shocked Hollywood at the time and prompted a wave of tabloid attention. Last spring, during an appearance on The View, he raised the topic after host Sunny Hostin asked him why he had emerged as a vocal critic of British tabloids and the practice of invading people's privacy.

“Everyone thinks, 'Oh, well, he's just bitter because he got busted with a prostitute in 1995.' But in reality it had nothing to do with that because the tabloids never found out. It was that the damn police gave the information to everyone. It had nothing to do with it,” he explained, later quoting “with power comes accountability” in the fight against the questionable methods of the tabloids.

Coincidentally, this last line is a piece of dialogue in Heretic that one of the young women connects to Spider-Man as Grant's Mr. Reed corrects her that it actually belongs to the French author Voltaire.

Speaking about the film, during their talk, the Iowa-born and raised filmmakers talked about how their homeland inspired the screenplay. “Brian and I have known each other since we were 11 years old. We grew up in Iowa, we started making movies in the Midwest,” the writer-director explained. “Over the last few decades, we've had countless conversations about religion and cult and this fear that we have, that I think a lot of people share about what happens after death.”

Beck continued: A few years ago after we wrote A quiet placewhich was a film that generated tension through cinematic techniques, we wondered if we could actually do the opposite, where the horror is not necessarily generated through monsters, but rather through ideas and discussions? This was really the birthplace of this idea Heretic.”

Woods said that when growing up in Iowa, the only topic of discussion off limits at the dinner table is religion. “It's something we grew up hearing all the time. Whatever you do, don't talk about religion because religion is divisive and deeply personal. A conversation about religion really only leads to arguments or bloodshed. So we wanted to make a film about this topic, and this is a wonderful place to project a cinematic conversation about religion. Every single movie lover here tonight knows that seeing a movie at the Chinese theater is like going to church. You are in a congregation with strangers. It might be thrilling, you might get a little bored, but whatever happens, it will be a religious experience.”

The experience will be open to the general public when Heretic opens November 8.