Hugh Grant annoyed by Notting Hill: “William has no balls!”

25 years later, the English actor still has difficulty accepting the naivety of his character, William Thacker.

This will certainly remain his absolute masterpiece. His most notable role. The one that will be engraved in the annals of the 7th art when we ask ourselves in a century: what was it? Hugh Grant ? Love at first sight in Notting Hill has forever defined the Grant style, and yet the English actor has great difficulty accepting it.

Having just turned 64, the English actor admitted in an interview given to Vanity Fair (see below): “Every time I skip home in front of the TV, after having a few drinks, and I come across this film, I say to myself: But why doesn’t my character have any balls?”

The English actor goes further in his analysis of William Thacker – the kind bookseller who falls for Hollywood star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) – and recounts this scene “where she is at my house and the paparazzi comes ringing the front door. There, he lets her walk past him, open the door and leave like that. It's a horrible sequence.”

At this point in the film, William and Anna have a dissolute relationship. Since they separated six months earlier, Thacker has pined for his actress, wondering what he could have done to keep her in his life. Then she suddenly reappears. And he lets her go like that.

“I've never had a girlfriend, or even a wife, who didn't ask me: Why the hell didn't William stop him then? who doesn't go to his house? And I don't really have an answer to that question… That's just how it's written. I think this guy is really pathetic.”

A provocative observation, which may not really be unanimous among the millions of fans of Love at first sight in Notting Hill.