Hugh Grant Grumps Out Over ‘Wonka’ Experience: “I Couldn’t Have Hated The Whole Thing More”

Jake Kanter
·1-min read

Hugh Grant was on curmudgeonly form during a press conference marking the release of Wonka, telling journalists that he hated playing an Oompa Loompa in the film.

Grant, who is no stranger to grumpy outbursts, said he loathed the experience of shooting CGI scenes for the Warner Bros. genesis story of Roald Dahl’s beloved character.

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He said creating his crotchety Oompa Loompa was like wearing a “crown of thorns” because of the camera rig around his head, according to a Metro.co.uk report.

“I made a big fuss about it,” Grant said. “I couldn’t have hated the whole thing more.” Asked if the ends justified the means, he replied: “Not really.”

Grant later joked that it was nothing personal against Wonka and director Paul King. “I slightly hate [making films] but I have lots of children and need money,” he said.

King has said Grant’s curmudgeonly qualities were exactly why he was cast in the Oompa Loompa role alongside Timothée Chalamet’s Willy Wonka.

King told Radio Times: “The Oompa Loompas don’t have any dialogue in the book, really, and the films, they’ve sort of got very little. But in the book they do have these very, very long songs – or they’re presented as songs, they’re poems.

“But they’re so funny, and I was reading them sort of trying to get a voice in my head, and they’re so sort of biting and sarcastic and scornful and incredibly funny, and Hugh’s voice just kept coming towards me.”

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