Hugh Gets Serious

Hugh Grant has taken on a role in Woody Allen's next film** Small Time Crooks** to prove he is a serious actor, according to Allen's biographer. Despite Notting Hill being the most successful British movie ever, Grant will accept a massive pay cut to star in the movie about an Englishman in the New York art world. Due to start filming this summer, Allen's film will be shot around the New York branch of Sotheby's and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. John Baxter, author of Woody Allen: A Biography, says, "Grant is probably being paid less than he would get for almost any other movie he did. He's doing it for the prestige. That's what everybody does these things for. You take on a film with Woody because you want to prove you're an actor, you want to prove you're still taking it seriously, that you're not just a star." Hmmm. So presumably Grant believes that playing an English auctioneer living in New York (Mickey Blue Eyes) doesn't constitute acting?