Hugh Grant and Renee Zellweger Bridget Jones's Diary. Photo / Universal Studios
Hugh Grant and Renee Zellweger Bridget Jones's Diary. Photo / Universal Studios
While the tumultuous affair with Bridget Jones meant little to womaniser Daniel Cleaver - it's now clear it meant even less to the actor behind the role, Hugh Grant.
In a segment on Watch What Happens Live on Thursday night, the foppish 55-year-old British actor failed miserably when asked toidentify the forehead of his on-screen love interest Renee Zellweger.
To be fair to Grant, who starred alongside Zellweger in the 2001 hit comedy Bridget Jones's Diary and its sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason - the actress has undergone somewhat of a transformation since the days of that ill-fated Hollywood romance.
'Who is the one second from the right, because I've never seen her before in my life?' Hugh asked, when shown just the top of the heads belonging to six of his famous female co-stars.
'''Oh Renée!''', he exclaimed when finally put out of his misery and told who the famous, line-free forehead belonged to.
Renée recently blasted back at rumours that she has had work done to drastically change her face, but in one stroke Hugh inadvertently (or maybe not so inadvertently) handed her critics fresh ammunition.
In a blog she wrote for Huffington Post last week entitled 'We Can Do Better', she attacked speculation about her changing looks and insisted she has NOT had surgery.
She wrote: "Not that it's anyone's business, but I did not make a decision to alter my face and have surgery on my eyes.
"This fact is of no true import to anyone at all, but that the possibility alone was discussed among respected journalists and became a public conversation is a disconcerting illustration of news/entertainment confusion and society's fixation on physicality."
Renee Zellweger. Photo / Getty Images
He then gave her a more deliberate dig, insisting she was "not exactly down to earth," adding: "Out to lunch is..."
And his caustic remarks weren't reserved exclusively for Zellweger.
On the topic of his other famous female co-stars including Sarah Jessica Parker, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, and Julianne Moore, he said it was "pushing it" to call any of them down-to-earth, while also admitting he has not remained in touch with any of them.
"They all hate me, I think," he surmised.
Hugh also took a swipe at Renée's new movie Bridget Jones's Baby, a follow-up to their blockbuster that stars Patrick Dempsey as a new character alongside Renée and Colin Firth.
He said the movie makers "did come to me and they had a lovely idea for a film."
But then added, sarcastically: "I'm particularly difficult and Queeny when it comes to scripts, and I couldn't quite make the script work for me so they then made it without me, and that's brilliant."
Asked if he might regret the decision, he admitted: "It depends on how much money it makes, obviously."
As well as his co-stars, Hugh was also unusually frank about his love life, happily replying when asked if he had "ever hooked up with a fan": "Oh God, yes!"
Hugh, who joked that he would be "the slutty one" from his movie Did You Hear About the Morgans?, also spoke about his social life mixing with stars of The Real Housewives of New York, saying: "They love me those housewives. Wherever I go, I bump into a housewife.
"I find them all very charming. I may end up with one, yeah," he quipped.
Asked by a caller if he likes "chubby American women," he insisted he did, adding with a smile: "The chubbier the better."
But his most bizarre intimate story was about a friend showing him his underwear - while they were in the middle of a posh golf course.
"A gentleman I was playing golf with yesterday showed me his underwear and I've never seen anything like it," he said with genuine wonder.
"They're compartmentalised, so your vegetables go in one department and your meat goes in another," he rexplained.
As host Andy Cohen looked shocked, Hugh explained it happened "on the course, on about the ninth hole on a rather grand club out in the Hamptons."
Hugh also joked about how he endlessly plays all of his movies on a loop at home, saying: "It's so hard to choose because they're all fantastic."
"I can't watch any of them," he then admitted after being asked for his favourite.
Remembering he was promoting a movie, Florence Foster Jenkins, with co-star Simon Helberg beside him on the chat show, Hugh quickly insisted: "But I will say this - I am very proud of this one. I'm rather good in this one."
He was reminded that he had been so cranky on his last appearance on the chat show that there had even been blog postings highlighting the times he'd been cranky.
When Andy noticed how Hugh was laughing at everything, the star quipped: "I'm high.
