Richard E. Grant on sex, power and playing an entitled man similar to the “Teflon-coated” Trump

Richard E. Grant, who received an Oscar nomination for his caddish Jack Hock in “Can You Ever Forgive Me,” will forever be associated with another feckless character, his breakout role of Withnail, the vain actor who is broke and alcoholic — he drinks lighter fluid out of desperation at one point — in the cult classic “Withnail and I.” Now add J.M. Sinclair in “The Lesson” to the roster of the many scoundrels Grant has played over the years. 

In this juicy drama, Sinclair is a famous writer, who, with his elegant wife Helene (Julie Delpy), hires Liam (Daryl McCormack of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande“) to tutor their son Bertie (Stephen McMillan) to help him get into Oxford. As Liam observes the goings on in the household — Sinclair both treats his son with disdain and has a series of intimate sexual moments with Helene — the film suggests it may be a cuckoo in the nest story of a strapping young man seducing a troubled family. 

But there is more to “The Lesson” than that. Liam comes to learn that the family is grieving from the recent loss of Bertie’s older brother Felix. As Liam gains the trust of his esteemed host, he is asked to read his latest novel. In exchange, Sinclair offers to read Liam’s book and provide his thoughts. Things get tricky when Sinclair’s work goes missing from his computer. What unfolds with this setup is best left for audiences to discover.

Grant plays Sinclair with tremendous brio, capturing his pompousness and authority as with some bon mots about good writers “stealing” work. He also demonstrates considerable bad behavior. The actor, who is nice, not nasty, in real life spoke with Salon about “The Lesson.”

Before we begin, is it Sinclair or James or J.M? 

J.M. Sinclair. 

Speaking of initials, what does the E. stand for? 

There was another actor with the same name, and I couldn’t afford to buy new photographs in 1983 so I asked, “Please, can I put a letter in between?” and I just came up with one.

You just came up with one!? So, it doesn’t stand for anything?
It doesn’t. What does your M. stand for?

Michael. But back to you. You excel at playing cads — Withnail, Jack Hock and now J.M. Sinclair. What is the appeal of being well, despicable on screen?

Well, Gary Michael Kramer, I think if you are born with a very long, tombstone-featured face, and unless you smile, you look absolutely miserable. So, people assume you are very snooty or entitled. I remember my mother said to me when I was 12 years old and doing school plays, “Why do you aways play these snotty people?” When I was older, someone said, “You were born with that long face. Everyone who has a long face, they look miserable,” So people can project things onto you. I’ve been in the street at times and people come up to me and ask if I am OK, and I say, “I’m fine, why?” and they say, “You look miserable as s**t.” So, I now try to smile. 

Sinclair is smug and haughty. He has authority and commands power but does not necessarily deserve it. Can you talk about finding his character, about whom someone claims, “Nothing can be raised around him?”

He is someone who has been successful for so long and unchallenged. He has had great financial and critical success which is a lethally strong combination. When his creative well is completely dry, he has to resort to subterfuge, and you realize that for all the bluff and entitlement, he is a hollow man. The suicide of his teenage son has absolutely annihilated him. It has gone off like a silent bomb for his family. Nothing is what it seems, and he employs a tutor to come into the hermetically sealed family unit, and the chain of events unravels him. It is satisfying when someone so up themselves gets their just deserts. That doesn’t happen in real life too often. Idi Amin lived to a grand old age and never took responsibility for what he’d done. And it seems like Donald Trump, likewise, is Teflon-coated. He will never go to jail. 

Boris Johnson is right up there with Trump. It’s a race to the bottom. But what is it about playing Sinclair as so magnetic and hateful?

There are many complaints that people can’t watch or get into “Succession” because the characters are so unlikable and irredeemable. I think there is something fascinating about seeing somebody like Sinclair, who is so unequivocally rude and so entitled and self-possessed, and so self-assured that you look at him and think how can someone get away with this? There is satisfaction in that. This is certainly part and parcel of the frustrating age we live in, where the ex-leaders we’ve mentioned do not take responsibility for what they have done. Maybe it’s always been like that, but it is particularly prevalent at this point in time. 

What observations do you have about Sinclair’s relationship with Helene? It is surprising that they are still together because many marriages dissolve after the death of a child. They seem to have an active sex life. 

He has total autonomy. Everything regarding the family is according to his rules. He is the most financially successful, and yet she has this great sexual power over him. They don’t have regular intercourse, they have cunnilingus, where he is literally on his knees before her. That is the power dynamic that they have. Whatever gets you through the night, baby! It is their contract of how they do it. We never see them in a flashback that shows their marriage prior to the suicide of their son, so you can only speculate on that, but it has got to a point where it is barely concealed contempt for one other. I know a couple in London who have been married for 40 years. They have the most toxic marriage imaginable, and no one can understand why they are still together. Maybe sex is what does it? I have no idea, but it is astonishing. The verbal abuse these people hurl at one another is up there with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” What goes on in marriages or partnerships is a mystery. 

Let’s talk about Sinclair’s fits of madness. I’ve long enjoyed watching you as an actor get a little wild and have these amazing rants. Now that I think about it, when I have an outburst of frustration, you are probably my role model as to how to behave in those situations. What can you say about depicting Sinclair’s temper?

How do I answer that? These are not things I have, but they are written by brilliant writers. That’s the kick of being an actor, that you can say and do stuff that I would never be able to do in my real life. Being given the opportunity to do that is a great release.

How do you find the right level of madness?

I have no – well, when I was 10 years old, I woke up in the back of a car and inadvertently saw my mother f**king my father’s best friend on the front seat. And I had to keep that secret. When my father found out and got divorced and became a violent alcoholic, I suppose my teenage life was living on the edge with someone who was a Jekyll and Hyde character, who at 9 p.m., when he had a full bottle of whiskey, suddenly turned into this unrecognizable monster. The frustration of having to navigate the person I loved and respected by day when he was sober and having to reconcile this with the maniac after 9 p.m. is probably the source of my rage. Calling Dr. Freud. So, I suppose that is what I very easily draw on.

Sinclair is a bit of a puppeteer — until he isn’t. Both Liam and Bertie seek Sinclair’s approval. Sinclair doesn’t have much humility, but he does exhibit fits of jealousy. What observations do you have about him and the ideas of manipulation in the film? There are several levels of sexual tension because everyone is trying to seduce everyone else, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally.

Sinclair employs Liam, who causes havoc, and because Sinclair finds out that Liam is a wannabe writer as well, there is instantly a tussle between a man in his twilight zone — I am, at 66, the oldest person on every job I do now — and there is young Liam, the young buck who has more testosterone than five bulls in a row. So, for Sinclair, that is a challenge, and it causes a kind of sexual tension. Because Sinclair sees Liam as this is what I was or what I could have been. When it results in physical violence, it is charged with that. The old stag fighting for his place with the young one. A tale as old as time, as Disney movies would tell us.

What do you think of the idea of Liam being a surrogate son for Sinclair? Sinclair is grieving and he takes some of his grief out on his surviving son. Does Sinclair seek to “replace” Felix with Liam since Bertie is a disappointment?

I can think of the equivalent where Sy Newhouse didn’t appoint his son to be the head of Vogue magazine and that whole empire; he chose his nephew, Jonathan Newhouse to do it instead. So, there is that thing where if somebody doesn’t fit within your own family, you seek the surrogate somewhere else, and that causes unbelievable havoc in a family.

Look at “The Godfather“!

Exactly! Conde Nast in real life or the Corleone family. Sonny thinks he’s in charge, and it’s Michael who is the dark horse.

Sinclair is trying to finish his book and salvage his reputation. Why is this so important to him? Is he that vain? “Writers must write,” he says, but he steals as a writer. Can you talk about his talent? Is it just ego and hubris that makes him feel he has to write?

I think so. It’s very difficult when writers get “written out.” I’m not saying Martin Amis got written out, but he stopped producing a novel every two or three years. It then turned into essays and compilations and very clearly, biographical things rather than writing fiction. The terror for any writer is that the well is going to be dry. That is exactly what has happened to Sinclair; his whole persona is being a successful writer; hitting writer’s block, his ego can’t get around that. How can he say, “I can’t do it anymore? I have nothing left.” That’s why he has to purloin someone else’s work in order to finish off his novel. That’s a very human thing. You think, I can’t go out there and be exposed as a fraud.

Writers must write; Actors must act. Why do you act? 

I will ask you, Gary Michael Kramer, why do you write?

Because I want to tell other people’s stories. I like to make folks aware of films that inspire me, and actors like you, who inspire me. I want to share that with others.

You felt compelled to write since you were a little boy?

Yes. 

I can say the exact same thing. I have no idea where it comes from. I never thought I’d end up with the career I have or let alone be in a movie. My final assessment in theater school, I was told I looked like a funeral attendant because of my long face. I was told if I ever wanted to make it in the theater, I should stick to writing and directing. I thought, maybe they know something I don’t. That compulsion to do it is in essence what you say about wanting to share and connect with other people. There is no better way than doing that.  

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Sinclair is a writer. What do you like to read? 

What are you reading?

I review books, so I’m currently working my way through “Idlewild,” about two teens in a Quaker school in New York circa 9/11, and I have Bryan Washington’s “Family Meal” to review after that. Also on my nightstand is my pleasure novel, the latest Brett Easton Ellis book, “The Shards.” 

I am currently reading the new doorstop-thick biography of Noel Coward, called “Masquerade,” which gives the real difference between the public life he led and his secret life. He was such a multihyphenate talent in the first half of the last century. I’m addicted to biography and autobiography, and history. Getting a new view on someone I had such a fixed idea of who or want he was, and this is a way of understanding that. The hunger and excitement of all that era after the first World War, is something I find riveting. 

“The Lesson” opens in theaters July 7.