Ashley Graham Isn't Sweating Hugh Grant's Rude Oscars 2023 Interview
At the 2023 Academy Awards, there was no slap controversy to dominate the pop culture discourse for weeks to come. This kept everyone's focus on what they usually care about after all those stoic little golden guys have been handed out: debating over who was and wasn't deserving of their awards, arguing over whether host Jimmy Kimmel was funny, and playing armchair fashion police.
The most talked-about physical contact on the Oscars stage this year wasn't physical assault, but the viral hug between "Everything Everywhere All At Once" star Ke Huy Quan and his "Temple of Doom" co-star Harrison Ford, who was reunited with Quan when he handed out the award for best picture. But there was at least one badly behaved star in attendance on Hollywood's biggest night: Hugh Grant. In "Bridget Jones's Diary," he charmed the pants off a reporter, but when model Ashley Graham attempted to interview him on the red carpet for ABC, she got no roguish charm. In fact, she had a difficult time getting anything out of him at all.
It was Graham who did the acting, keeping her energy positive and steadfastly smiling as Grant brusquely answered her questions. In response to Graham asking him who he was wearing, Grant curtly replied, "Just my suit." When pressed for a name, he left its designer devastated by saying that he couldn't recall who made it. Things just went downhill from there, but Graham was a good sport about the challenging interview.
How Ashley Graham's mom helped her survive interviewing Hugh Grant
During her interview with Hugh Grant, Ashley Graham kept giving him opportunities to redeem himself. She tried to get him to discuss his appearance in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery," but all he gave her was, "Well, I'm barely in it. I'm in it for about 3 seconds." And when she sent the aloof actor on his way by telling him, "It was nice to talk to you," he responded with a terse "Yeah" and an eye-roll. But Graham smiled on.
When TMZ spoke to Graham about the awkward red carpet moment, she revealed where she got the unshakeable poise that she displayed in the face of such daunting indifference. "You know what? My mama told me to kill people with kindness, so there you go," she said.
While Grant likened the glamor and excess on display on the red carpet to the William Makepeace Thackeray novel "Vanity Fair," a scathing critique of high society, he proved that he can play ball by comparing himself to, um ... Here's a quick recap. When he took the stage with his "Four Weddings and a Funeral" co-star Andie MacDowell, he praised her for having amazing, well-moisturized skin before quipping, "I'm basically a scrotum." Grant turned on the charm to deliver the self-deprecating joke and got some hearty guffaws from the audience. (If only he could use cue cards for interviews.)