With Nails by Richard E. Grant (TBR Challenge Book #8)

I think the first time I ever saw Grant on screen was during high school history class, in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1998). For a long time afterwards, my classmates would quote to one another:

"They seek him here, they seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere!
Is he in heaven? Is he in hell?
That damned elusive Pimpernel!"

Anyway. Since then I've seen Grant many more times, on screen and off, including a live taping of ABC's First Tuesday Book Club; and presenting an anniversary screening of British cult classic Withnail & I (1987).

It's that movie, as the title of the book suggests, which kick-started Grant's tv and movie career. His role as the alcoholic, somewhat deranged and self-deluded 'resting' (unemployed) actor Withnail became his calling card to Hollywood.

This memoir spans more than half a decade in Hollywood. He describes his experiences taking good roles in bad movies (Warlock, Henry and June, LA Story), culminating in Hudson Hawk (1991), now infamous as one of the biggest, most hubristic and expensive flops of all time. For his part, Grant received a Razzie nomination! However, immediately after that trial by fire, the slate was balanced when he found himself working with three great auteurs: Altman, Coppola and Scorsese.

For Grant's eloquence and sense of humour alone, this book would be worth a read. As a movie fan however it's possibly even better - it's rare to see the workings behind the scenes of Hollywood from an actor's perspective described so frankly and honestly. He's not in the least shy about making his feelings heard about Bruce Willis (charming egomaniac), Joel Silver (pure egomaniac) or Madonna (narcissist) - it doesn't seem to have hurt his career either, with Madonna for one choosing to work with him again, on her directorial debut Filth & Wisdom (2008).

And he has good things to say too about movie sets that do work well, too, and about the different working methods of each director. Altman for instance keeps his sets easygoing and charming, inviting collaboration. Coppola is controlled chaos with a family emphasis; and Scorsese is focused and detail-oriented. He also offers tantalising glimpses of movies that could have been - Withnail was initially offered to Daniel Day-Lewis, for instance, while Grant himself was offered the Sheriff role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves which eventually went to Alan Rickman in a movie-stealing role.

There are times when Grant's stories of Hollywood high life seem like a series of strategic namedrops – lunch with Steve Martin, dinner with Gary Oldman, not to mention hang-outs with Anthony Hopkins, Uma, Winona, Johnny, Madonna, Tom Waits, Hugh and Liz – but he's always undercutting that with his own sense of self-deprecation (convinced he'll be found out as a fraud, insecure as all actors are!) and his sharp observations on the excesses of Hollywood life - his descriptions of Sharon Stone's manipulations of shop assistants and Bruce Willis' ego on set are all priceless.

My 12 books for the 2011 TBR Challenge