‘I missed them so badly’: Hugh Grant admits he often broke down in tears when he was away from his kids to film The Undoing but jokes he first took the role as they were ‘exhausting’
Hugh Grant has admitted he was so emotional after leaving his kids at home while filming The Undoing he would often break down in tears.
The actor, 60, spoke candidly about how he struggled while being apart from them during an appearance set to air on Friday’s Graham Norton Show, as he joked he’d originally taken the job because his children were ‘exhausting’.
Detailing how he would get overcome with emotion on a regular basis, he began: ‘Having spent a career unable to muster a single emotion, I find in my old age I can’t stop them.
‘I missed them so badly’: Hugh Grant admitted on Friday’s Graham Norton Show that he often broke down in tears when he was away from his kids to film The Undoing
‘It’s something to do with children or love, or my wife, or something, but I can’t keep it at bay.’
Discussing why he’d taken the part, Hugh went on: ‘I did this job partly to get away from my young children as they are exhausting at my age.
‘I thought it would be great to have a break but every time I arrived in New York I missed them so badly I was a mess, so every scene was suddenly a cue for tears for me. I’d even go into a cafe and ask for a cup of coffee and the tears would come!’
Hugh and wife Anna Eberstein’s first child, John, was born in 2012. They have since gone on to have a second child in December 2015 and a third in March 2018.
Family: Hugh and wife Anna Eberstein’s first child, John, was born in 2012, and have since gone on to have a second child in December 2015 and a third in March 2018 (pictured in February)
The couple have not disclosed the gender or names of their youngest children.
As well as his three children with Anna, Hugh also shares two children with ex Tinglan Hong: daughter, Tabitha, nine, and son Felix, seven.
The actor spent lockdown with three of his five children amid the coronavirus crisis, which he got at the start of the pandemic.
‘I got it and I was very brave and manly about it! I got it right back at the beginning – I actually didn’t know what it was,’ he explained to presenter Graham.
Struggle: Hugh joked he’d originally taken the job because his children were ‘exhausting’, but said he ‘missed them so badly I was a mess, so every scene was suddenly a cue for tears’
‘It felt like mild flu and then a rather alarming complete loss of smell, which culminated in me sticking my head in dustbins sniffing, thinking, “There must be something here” and spraying myself in the face with my wife’s Chanel No.5 but smelt nothing.’
Fellow guest Nigella Lawson asked if his condition had put him off eating at the time, but he claimed he has ‘never been interested’ in food.
‘It was a little dull but then I was cooking because it was lockdown and it was never going to be delicious,’ he joked. ‘I cooked every single night for four months and it was a baked potato. That was it!’
The Undoing, which is based on the 2014 novel You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz, follows Grace (Kidman) and Jonathan Fraser (Grant), who are living the only lives they ever wanted for themselves.
But their peaceful world comes crashing down with a violent death and a chain of terrible revelations.
Left behind in the wake of a spreading and very public disaster and horrified by the ways in which she has failed to heed her own advice, Grace must dismantle one life and create another for her child and her family.
Murder, mystery: The Undoing, based on the novel You Should Have Known, follows Grace (Nicole Kidman) and Jonathan Fraser (Grant), who become embroiled in a murder mystery plot