Hugh Grant Jokes He Put ‘Parental Controls’ on His TV So His Wife Can Never Watch This ‘90s Flop of His

Hugh Grant is proud of a lot of his movies — but not this one.

In an interview published by Variety on Jan. 6, writer Jenelle Riley mentioned the 1995 film Nine Months to the actor. “Grant screams as if startled,” she wrote of his reaction.

“Let me stress, everyone involved with that film, with the exception of me, was brilliant and talented,” the 64-year-old actor said. “It was just me that let it down.”

The movie starred Grant and Julianne Moore as a couple whose relationship wobbles when she learns she’s pregnant. It also starred Robin Williams, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack and Jeff Goldblum. Directed by Chris Columbus, it was Grant’s first starring role in a U.S. film and received mixed reviews.

“My wife wants to watch it, but I’ve forbidden her,” Grant told Variety of his spouse, Anna Eberstein. “I’ve put parental controls on the screen so that you can’t get it."

Related: Hugh Grant Shares Hilarious Notes He Got from Love Actually Director Richard Curtis: 'Now Do a Funny One'

Grant also told the outlet that romantic comedies are “hard” and he’s come to view them in a new light over time. “I really appreciate the good ones I did,” he said. “The Richard Curtis ones are really about pain.” Those movies include Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary.

Because they deal with pain, he said, “That’s what makes them sustain and not float away like a piece of fluff.” He also credited his movies directed by Marc Lawrence — 2002’s Two Weeks Notice and 2007’s Music and Lyrics — as “great.” “He genuinely loves people and there’s a warmth that I find enchanting,” he said. “Because I’ve seen the romantic comedies that are slightly put together by committee, and they don’t work as well.”

Grant has received awards buzz for his latest part, a villainous role in Heretic, and back in October, he told PEOPLE he preferred to go to the dark side. “Good guys are difficult,” he explained. “They're difficult to keep from being boring.”

“I think almost any actor prefers being the damaged, bad guy. It's much more interesting,” he added. 

In the last five years, Grant has increasingly moved into more idiosyncratic roles, including turns in 2017’s Paddington 2 and 2023’s Willy Wonka. “Earlier on” in his screen work, he told PEOPLE, he played more sinister characters before pivoting toward romance films.

“I wish that I had kept that going at the same time as I'd been doing the romantic comedy — as much as I love the romantic comedy,” he said.

Related: Hugh Grant Says Cloud Atlas Saved His Career, Made Him 'Enjoy' Acting Again After Feeling 'Completely Marooned'

But if you find romantic comedies formulaic, he doesn’t agree.

“We know Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible is not in any real danger. We know he’s going to live, but I’m still terrified [for] him when he’s hanging off a plane,” he told Variety. “So, I think it applies to all genres. I just think ‘com’ is difficult. I don’t know about ‘rom.’ Rom is not easy — and you need to mean it — but com is certainly very difficult."

Read the original article on People