Richard E. Grant’s career comes full circle in The Franchise

“I’m a trained actor reduced to the status of a bum!” cries Richard E. Grant’s Withnail early on in Withnail And I, delivering the line as if he’s Olivier at the Old Vic while he’s, in actuality, surrounded by the squalor of his Camden flat (and shirtless and slathered in lotion in a feeble attempt to keep warm), looking equally hungover and drug crazed and like he hasn’t slept days, and addressing or, better yet, performing for his roommate/drinking buddy, the “I” from the film’s title. It’s no stretch to say that Withnail is the role that made Richard E. Grant, who, before booking Bruce Robinson’s brilliant 1987 cult comedy, was not unlike his character, at least as far as career prospects: a struggling actor in London who was pushing 30 and whose opportunities felt fewer and farther between. “If Daniel Day-Lewis hadn’t turned down Withnail And I, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you right now,” the actor told me over coffees with a smile during an interview in 2018, before saying that, even 30-plus years into a successful and impressive career in films with far, far more eyeballs that Withnail, the line he was most often asked to repeat in public was from his screen debut—specifically, “Monty, you terrible cunt!” 

Whether or not you’re completely taken by HBO’s new comedy The Franchise, one of its inarguable, let’s-keep-watching-this-every-Sunday-night joys so far is that it has Grant back in full thespian-diva mode, channeling a bit of the same Entitled Actor Spirit that made him such a revelation in Withnail. In fact, it feels safe to assume that one of The Franchise’s network notes was something along the lines of “Needs more Richard E. Grant,” as the guy, playing veteran stage actor Peter, steals just about every scene he’s in, usually while butting heads with Eric (Daniel Brühl), the director of Tecto: Eye Of The Storm, the prospective Marvel-esque blockbuster that The Franchise documents the making of, or Adam (Billy Magnussen), Tecto’s sweet but, at least in the eyes of Peter, unserious and undeserving star. 

To the former, he spits out, in the show’s second episode, the following in an attempt to be No. 1 on the call sheet even though he’s the film’s supporting character: “I’m very low maintenance. Now get that through your thick fucking skull, Daniel!” (By that installment’s end, he indeed becomes “1 A” on said call sheet.) And in the third episode, he grouses to Daniel again, this time about a note: “The distance between nodding and cowering is 100,000 miles,” he tells his director with drama-queen vigor before shifting into faux humility. “I’m sorry, I just cannot see my way to a cower. Lord knows I’ve tried.” As for the latter—that’s Adam, a nice-guy bro who’s very much Peter’s comedic foil—he’s more fond of ribbing if not outright insulting him, preferably in public, describing him in an on-set TV interview as ““instinctual like a bear or a hog. And I say this, you know, with respect. It’s like working with a chimpanzee.” 

Series creator Jon Brown and the show’s writers (among them, the great Tony Roche of the deliciously cynical political satire The Thick Of It by Armando Iannucci, one of The Franchise’s executive producers) are clearly Withnail fans themselves, tossing in little nods to Grant’s character in the film throughout. “Morning, cunts!” Peter cheerfully greets the director & co. outside of his trailer, which recalls that aforementioned memorable line from Withnail. In a different episode, as the camera makes its way past that trailer, you can hear Peter yelling offscreen, dripping with indignation and drama, “How fucking dare you?” which has echoes of “How dare you?” in Withnail, when Grant’s wannabe thespian blasts “I” (played by Paul McGann) with a stage-worthy overreaction.  

Richard E. Grant in The Franchise (Photo: Colin Hutton/HBO)

That said, these characters—Peter in The Franchise and Withnail in Withnail And I—are quite different. One of the tragedies of Withnail is that, between all of the comedy, you can sense that this titular character, like the ’60s the film takes place in, is doomed, likely to drink himself to death if not by 30 then certainly 40. And it’s a fate he seems to almost see coming, choosing instead to feed his delusions of grandeur as the misunderstood boho genius than, like “I,” take practical, polite steps to making an acting career happen. “I’ll show the lot of you!” he drunkenly yells from a misty countryside mountaintop into the void below as the two are on holiday. “I’m gonna be a star!” That the film ends with Withnail alone and drunk on wine and in the rain in Regent’s Park, beautifully and passionately delivering a monologue from Hamlet to a zoo animal, is bleakly fitting. (In both cases, he’s essentially performing and channeling all of that rage and frustration for no one.) In The Franchise, meanwhile, Peter is the well-known, snobbish thespian Withnail probably felt he deserved to be. And while he isn’t “reduced to the status of a bum,” he is reduced to playing second banana in a shitty superhero movie, a fate a cynic like Withnail would have no doubt found more than a bit amusing.