Hugh Grant is the master of disguise

Hugh Grant will be seen as dressed as a knight in armour, a nun, and a balding man with giant mutton chops in Paddington 2, which releases tomorrow. Grant plays the film's primary villain Phoenix Buchanan - an actor past his prime, now reduced to doing dog food commercials to make a living. His character Phoenix is convinced that he can achieve fame and glory with his uncanny gift for disguises. Phoenix is able to change his appearance, manner, and accent almost at will. And that had Hugh assuming a number of attires.

Hugh worked closely on his distinct looks for the film and even made some interesting suggestions. He, in fact, suggested wearing a bald cap for an important sequence where the dastardly Buchanan is seen attempting a quick getaway. Hugh jokingly said, "Although I thought maybe to do something with longer hair and mutton chops but the bald looks quite good too, does 't it?"

“When I heard the villain was a master of disguise, I thought, ‘this is going to be fun’,” says Christine Blundell, the film’s Academy Award® winning head of make-up and hair. “And Hugh was such a good sport.” Working closely with another Academy Award winner — the returning costume designer, Lindy Hemming. Blundell came up with a number of different looks for Phoenix, casting Grant’s head in plaster in order to showcase them to the actor, who wholeheartedly threw himself into the process. In fact, it was Grant who suggested wearing a bald cap for the sequence where the dastardly Buchanan attempts to make a quick getaway. “He said, ‘Can I maybe do something with longer hair and mutton chops?’ And as I put that together on the cast of his face, so he could look at it objectively, he said, ‘it looks quite good bald, doesn’t it?’” 

Talking about casting Hugh for the role of Phoenix, director Paul King who originally called the character Hugh, knew he always wanted the actor for it. “I wrote Hugh a letter saying, ‘we’ve written this part of a vain, washed up old has-been with you in mind’ and luckily he took it with great humour,” says King. “He’s such a great comic actor, with such a splendid sense of the absurdity of his profession, and it’s very pleasing to see him sending the whole thing up.”